All you need is LOVE
by Uchiha Yumi
Summary: What happens when you’re in love with your loudmouthed fukutaichou but your loudmouthed fukutaichou is in love with your stepsister? And what happens if said stepsister is in love with a certain orangehaired ryokaboy? ByaRen, slightly IchiRukia
1. Four Days, Two Desires

**Author:** Uchiha Yumi

**Title:** All you Need is LOVE

**Genre:** Humour, Romance

**Summary: **What happens when you're in love with your loud-mouthed fukutaichou but your loud-mouthed fukutaichou is in love with your step-sister? And what happens if said sister is in love with a certain orange-haired ryoka-boy? Byakuya x Renji, one-sided Renji x Rukia, Ichigo x Rukia

**Rating:** T

**Parings:** Byakuya x Renji; One-sided Renji x Rukia (on Renji's side), Ichigo x Rukia, other crack pairings appearing along the way.

**Main Characters: **Kuchiki Byakuya, Abarai Renji, Kuchiki Rukia, Kurosaki Ichigo – various others appearing.

**Special thanks:** A special thank to Lilya-chan and FunnyNeko, for reading and correcting all of my nasty stuff.

**Disclaimer: **Ieeeh! Kuchiki-taichou is so lucky! He owns both me and Renji! winks Too bad I don't have enough money to bribe him into having a threesome with me and his lover…

**Notes: **English is not my native tongue. Please tell me about my mistakes!

And I'm not good at writing about Bleach.

* * *

Okay, here we are – after six months of working on this fic and nearly 10 chapters done, I decided it was about time to start publishing it. But please, don't ask me "Update soon" or such, because I can't update soon, simply – too busy to go on writing new chapters at a fast rate. 

I'll try to be short, but **PLEASE, DO READ THIS NOTES**:

**1)** it's humour, plain humour and its main pairing is Byakuya x Renji, Oh, and I usually hate IchiRukia stuff, but in this case the couple was useful to my ideas…

**2)** there is an aura of "modernity" in its plot: shinigami use pens and not brushes, they have phones in the divisions and so on…It's intentional. The rhythm of the narration is pretty slow. It's more about funny thoughts than action. That's just the way I like it.

**3)** Don't come and tell me Byakuya is OOC, please – I reflected so much about it and I realized that there are two levels of Byakuya in my story – the external one, always collected and cold and the internal one….XD Please, enjoy it…in the end…who knows what's hiding behind that icy mask of his?

**4)** ART TRADE! Is some of you willing to draw some ByakuyaRenji or RenjiRukia for me? Pretty please? I'll be a good girl and give you a fanfiction in return – everyone able to draw, please think about it!

Okay…enough blabbering…ON WITH THE SHOW!

**_ALL YOU NEED IS...LOVE!_**

**CHAPTER ONE: FOUR DAYS, TWO DESIRES**

"Uhhmmm…four days…"

Renji glanced at the calendar hanging on the white wall and sighed, rubbing the back of his head.

"Geez, four days!" he repeated with a higher tone, matter-of-factly.

He stared at the evil list of dates and numbers for a little longer, then turned around, reaching for his seat and heavily sinking in his chair, his legs crossed on the wooden desk.

"Four days…" he mumbled again, throwing his head backwards and staring at the ceiling. "Four days!" he shifted again, looking straight in front of him and frowning in direction of his captain.

Kuchiki Byakuya glanced at him with the corner of his eye, raising his head from the pile of modules he had to fill in.

How long could his noble decency tolerate such a thing? How long would he manage not to taint his precious SenbonZakura with the valueless blood of that Rukongai boy that, for instance, happened to be his Fukutaichou?

Not _so_ long, truth to be told.

Sure, he had always hated the reckless, bad-ass attitude of Abarai Renji, he knew it perfectly. But, what he didn't know was that there was something even worse than his loud, impudent, impulsive, usual behaviour: seeing him nervous and impatient.

In fact, since the day - was it two weeks ago? Yeah, more or less – he knew Rukia was about to come back to Soul Society after a three-months-long mission, the major activity of Abarai Renji had become staring at the calendar.

Every single day, hour, minute, second had been clearly consecrated to the holy task of waiting-with-impatience-the-arrival-of-Princess-Rukia.

And, of course, with the consequent result of straining Kuchiki Byakuya's endurance.

Now, the point was that, probably, whether in fear or in shame, every other Fukutaichou would have avoided such an _annoying _behaviour in front of a Captain-ranked Shinigami.  
But, given that Abarai Renji _wasn't_ like any other Fukutaichou, he simply kept on acting like that, heavily sighing and staring at the freaking calendar every 5 seconds.

' _Why can't he be a little more…**submissive**?'_

But, as soon as that thought passed through his mind, a deep shade of red tainted his cheeks.

Of course, that wasn't the only _situation_ in which, in Byakuya's holy opinion, Renji should have been more _submissive_.

He sighed heavily, then shook his head and looked back at his incomplete reports.

Renji just kept on randomly fixing his gaze on various objects in the room. Sure, various objects except his "beloved" paper-work.

"Renji" Byakuya finally uttered after a few moments "You know, it's not like time passes more quickly if you stare so intensively at the calendar…"

The red-headed shinigami jumped a bit on his chair "Huh? What? Were you talking to me, Kuchiki-taichou?"

"Do you see anyone else in the room?" he simply answered without raising his head from the papers. He sighed again "Why don't you at least find something interesting to do while waiting?"

"For example?" Renji asked, bored.

"For example your paper-work."

He raised both his tattooed eye-brows, then scratched the back of his head "Err…another example?"

Byakuya just shrugged "Never mind, Renji".

Abarai-fukutaichou scratched his head again, then rested his cheek on his right hand, blankly staring out of the window as heavy, hurting, painful sighs regularly parted from his lips every few moments.

Byakuya just furtively glanced at him again.

'_Why can't I hear him sighing like that for other things?' _his mind registered '_Oh God…I thought about it again!'_

Sure, he did.

What had he been thinking about during the last few months?

Okay, a wet dream once in a while can be considered as a healthy expression of your male, prideful being.

But, once every night or, often, twice in a row, it can't be a mere coincidence, can it? By the way, even in that unfortunate case, he should say it was a _very nice_ coincidence.

Well, at least if you don't consider the throbbing of desire left sadly unsatisfied.

Byakuya's eyes widened in realization

'_Byakuya, stop it! It's SO unbecoming of you!' _he scolded himself.

And he failed miserably for, after a few moments, his eyes couldn't help but being focussed on Renji. Exactly as Renji's ones were fixed – again – on the calendar.

It had now become a perfect equation, during the past two weeks.

Renji's eyes were focussed on the calendar or out of the window? Then, Byakuya's gaze indulged on that brawny, toned figure, slightly wondering when and where he would be able to see those red strands being loose again about his shoulder, this time, possibly, without blood leaking out of multiple wounds.

Or, maybe, he would have learnt how to enjoy the pleasure of licking away the blood…

Byakuya shook his head again, squeezing his eyes.

On the other hand though, every time Renji's lazy visual-analysis of their office ended up on him, his own eyes magically returned to the paperwork.

He sighed.

He really hated himself for being like that – more or less a coward.

He, the noble Kuchiki Byakuya-sama, Taichou of the Sixth Division, wasn't actually able to deal with his feelings. He could handle the overwhelming pain, the hardness of the battles, the weight of being the symbol and hope of his family, but he couldn't come to terms with the fact he was fatally attracted by his fukutaichou. Maybe it was because he was shy, or maybe because the situation was wrong on every level.

He was noble.

And Renji was not.

He was silent and reflective.

And Renji was not.

He was calm and didn't get angry very often.

And Renji did not.

Maybe, truth to be told, the only thing they had in common was the fact they both were males. But, in this case, surely that wasn't something in their favour.

Renji was his subordinate: it was against every law in Soul Society. And, because Renji was not rich or noble, it was against his family rules as well.

_o-O-o_

While Byakuya was peacefully torturing his head with those unpleasant thoughts, Renji still kept on staring ahead of him, his mind gone for some unknown and imprecise place.

Ok, maybe the place _was_ known and a bit more definite: Karakura town. Kurosaki Ichigo's house, more exactly.

And, given that, maybe also his imaginary actions were already clear: virtually beating the crap out of Ichigo and then hugging his dear, sweet Rukia-chan.

Why the hell, with all the places on earth Rukia had to be re-assigned to that town!

Destiny was mean to him, that was the truth.

Firstly, he had had an hellish time to hook up with Rukia. Then, when he was about to convince her to date him, she had been sent to Earth and got injured, which meant being confined in a gigai for quite a long time.

Then again, the whole matter of her execution, the betrayal of the Captains and their mission in disguise as some students which didn't give him the long awaited results Renji hoped: Rukia was still at Orange-head's place.

Geez! So annoying!

And now?

Now, more or less one year later, his beloved was still stuck to that sort of "Shini-hollow" and, as if that wasn't enough, he just realized that his actual Taichou was Rukia's older brother.

Well, that's right, he knew it from the beginning. But, as time and events flew by, Renji did also grasp that Kuchiki Byakuya-taichou could also be a _very protective_ brother.

And, if his memory didn't fail him, SenbonZakura's BanKai _did_ hurt. Quite a lot.

He sighed, his brown irises glancing again at the evil tool of torture common people call "calendar".

Life was unfair.

Why the hell did he have to struggle so much to achieve his goal?

Maybe he was not cut off for the "full-time-job" of boy-friend, that is. Or, more simply, probably he didn't manage to _impress_ her enough.

'_And Kurosaki, then? What did he do to** attract** her so much?'_ he frowned in thought, resting his head again on his right hand _' I see...maybe it's because of his orange hair…'_ he pondered _'Maybe she likes particular guys…'_

But then, given that Abarai Renji happened to have _bright red long hair_ and a _huge tattoo_ that, starting from his eyebrows, covered _half of his body_, it was absolutely _plain_ it wasn't at matter of weird looks.

'_Mmmhhh…I got it…Maybe it's because he is half hollow!_' a glint of victory flashed for half a second on his face _'Naaaah…'_

He suddenly calmed down again.

'_Why didn't she hook up with a Menos, then? At least they have a certain appeal as hollows…'_ he nodded to himself in agreement.

Another sigh.

Yeah, it was true: women are troublesome and unreadable.

What did that skinny boy have more than the mighty Fukutaichou of the Sixth Division?

That question really hunted him, _back then_.

He had been quite desperate.

_Very _desperate.

_Absolutely_ desperate.

_Enough _desperate to find the guts to go and ask Kyouraku-Taichou some tips about women.

He had brightly smiled at him,_ back then_, and hugged him friendlily.

Then, he had said with solemn voice:

"You must treat women with utter respect. You must bring them flowers, dedicate them poems and sing them sweet songs" then he paused and whispered, winking "And always support them if they are in _that _period" again out loud "Isn't it true, my lovely, lovely Nanao-chan?"

And then, obviously Ise-fukutaichou had whacked him very hard on the head and more or less beat him up to a pulp.

Okay, maybe Renji didn't learn from that episode how to conquer a girl's heart, but, at least, he got perfectly a few things:

1) never rely on Kyouraku-taichou for sentimental matters,

2) women _are_ scary

and 3) you must learn more or less to decipher when a girl is PMSing and then, avoid her as much as possible in those days.

The point was that, evidently, Ise-fukutaichou's PMSing-period was really, really long…

By the way, that wasn't the problem.

Not for _him_, at least.

He sighed.

Again.

Then he glanced at the calendar.

Again.

'_Oh Gawd, now it's official, you're drugged with the calendar'_ he frowned in concern _'Or rather, you're drugged with Rukia…' _he frowned even more, stealing a glimpse of his Taichou silently filling piles of modules and reports. _'Or, better still, you **would like** to be drugged with Rukia…'_

He shook his head again, clenching his fists.

'_C'mon, Renji, be a man and stop acting like that!'_

But then, a little evil voice in the back of his head reminded him that, whenever he was thinking about Rukia, he was already _enough man_ without any need of further encouragement.

Then, soon after this unpleasant remark of "little Devil-Renji", his "pretty male mind" started to shoot through his head a sudden series of _very inappropriate_ thoughts, the purest of which was mainly involving leather strands and a washing machine set on the spin-dryer program.

But luckily, his rational mind immediately took control of the situation and reminded him that, in Soul Society they didn't use leather strands and didn't have washing machines and, if this perverted side of his being couldn't quite resist the urge to accomplish that folly, that would have meant he should have asked Urahara to provide him those objects.

And, if finding a good pretext to order a washing machine was rather easy, could he possibly say the same about the leather strands?

But then, when he was already about to compile a module and request some leather threads – possibly black – for "gardening purposes", his mind swung again, providing him the thought he could have ordered the goods personally at Urahara's shop on Earth, so perhaps he could have met Rukia and, if in the back of the shop there was enough room for two…

'_ENOUGH!'_ Renji ordered himself to smother the bad, bad thought his mind was sinking in. _'Maybe Kuchiki-taichou is right…I can try to find something to do while waiting…Well, then! Why don't I organize something good to finally impress Rukia and have her for me? Hell yeah!'_

"Hell Yeah", right, but…_what_ exactly?

'_Mmhhh…what can be big enough to please a girl and impress her for the rest of her life?'_ Renji wondered, scratching his chin in thought. – and obviously ignoring the not-so-innocent answer that "Little Devil Renji" suggested him.

Then, after a few moments, his lips curved into a happy smile and he slammed his hand on the desk, earning a sour look by his Taichou.

'_Found it! A strip-tease show!'_

Then, the utmost silence reigned in his head and, as soon as it appeared, his smile vanquished away.

'_Good…How are you supposed to find strippers in Soul Society?'_ he frowned in concern _'Ok, one could be you, that's settled. And the others?'_

His face lit up again in a broad grin _'The others shall be volunteers!' _and the grin faded again in a few milliseconds. More precisely, as soon as his sick mind provided him the image of Zaraki-taichou or Yamamoto-taichou stripping down to their boxers, or worse, to their natural outfit…

'_Okay, possibility number one, "strip-tease-show": FAILED. Now, on with Number Two…'_ he pondered a bit _'Ok, Renji…You DON'T HAVE a "possibility Number Two", right now…'_ he titled his head and rested in on the palm of his hand.

Given that the show was out of his reach, what else?

Bring her flowers?

Predictable.

Dinner out?

Not like him.

So what?

Suddenly, after a bunch of idiocies, a slightly intelligent thought entered his mind.

'_What if…I organize a party for her?'_ he paused, looking at the calendar once more '_YEAH! I GOT THE RIGHT IDEA! That's decided, then! Renji, you ARE a genius!'_

Yeah, sure…a genius.

But genius of "what" wasn't clear yet…

_o-O-o_

While Renji's mind was happily delighting itself with the choice of a good surprise to electrify Rukia with, Kuchiki Byakuya-taichou was mentally and solemnly ripping off, petal by petal, a _huge _field of marguerites.

'_Should I tell him?'_ he thought as his right hand filled, for the hundredth time in a day, the empty space next to "Result of the mission" with a stern "Positive". _'No I should not!'_ he closed the report, opened a new folder and sighed.

'_Good, this is the "Tokyo-mission-report" the one in which Renji…' _Byakuya felt a rush of blood to his head and his pen slipped out of his hand.

Yeah, the (in)famous mission in Tokyo.

The one in which three hollows attacked the same area so a Vice-Captain was needed and Abarai Renji just rushed there.

And beat up the hollows. But (un)fortunately lost half of his…

Byakuya swallowed hard

… clothes in the process and came back to Soul Society gloriously wrapped in his boxers.

And _just_ his boxers.

Needless to say, Kuchiki Byakuya -Taichou almost needed a blood-transfusion, that day.

'_Oh my, how can I possibly be affected like this?'_

Oh well, maybe the fact he heard Renji singing "You sexy thing" under the showers of their Division actually had a prominent role in all that mess.

Sure.

And probably also the indicative T-shirt Renji wore when he got out of the bathrooms, in the end, meant something. "Sex instructor, first lesson free" it read.

But, unluckily for Kuchiki-taichou, the place _where_ to book this "free lesson" wasn't specified.

The noble man re-grabbed his pen and started compiling modules and schemes again, filling empty lines and automatically writing words and sentences.

'_I am a coward'_ his mind stated as he was describing (with abundance of details) the results of the mission. _'Wait…did I write "he came back barely covering his** toned** body with his boxers" ?_' he sighed, dragging the pen over and over the word "toned", covering it completely with new ink until it wasn't readable anymore. _'Shame on you! It's not like you at all to archive your reports when they are written so messily. You even erased a word!'_

But, honestly, writing down his feelings for his Fukutaichou, was, matter-of-factly, worse.

Also because that was an official report. Not his personal journal.

Not that he had never had one, but still…

Ok, rationally considering the whole matter a "sexual-frustrations-outlet-journal" would have been rather useful.

'_Aaah! What am I thinking about? It's not proper! Not proper at all!'_

He cast a tentative glance at his Vice-Captain, finding him completely caught in his thoughts and slightly biting on his own pen.

Byakuya indulged in staring at him a bit more, attentively observing how he twisted it under his teeth, occasionally sucking on it...

Soon, Byakuya found himself almost panting.

'_Didn't you have a report to compile!'_ he forced himself to think. _'Then do it!' _he bent again on his papers.

Easy to say, impossible to do.

In no time, in fact, without even being aware of it, he was looking at Renji again.

Or, more exactly, he was _analyzing _Renji again.

The way his kimono was wrapped around his chest, every single fold highlighting his brawny body, the sparkling reflections of bright light on his red hair, his brown eyes rolling and wandering around the room, his brows knitting in concern and thought.

'_I wonder** where** that tattoo really ends…'_ he clenched his fist on the pen and the thin plastic slightly shrieked under that so un-noble action._ ' You must tell him! He will reject you and that's all. The end of the play.'_

Renji glanced again at the calendar, sighing deeply.

So deeply Kuchiki-taichou could almost feel that deepness burying inside of his own chest.

'_I must confess it all…'_ he tried not to stare at his Fukutaichou anymore and moved his gaze to the pile of papers on his own desk '_Your sanity depends on that. Deal, Byakuya: you must declare to him before Rukia comes back to Soul Society. Yes, it's decided. Definitely.'_ he eyed at Abarai Renji one (hopefully) last time, then, full of good thoughts and resolution he resumed his activity of "report-compiling".

But…

How long was it going to last?

_**

* * *

**_

_**To be continued…**_

Opinion poll: what do you think is gonna happen next?

The ones who got it right, will be mentioned in my dedications on the second chapter!


	2. Day One

Aaaalright - I thought it was just about time I'd update this story. It's true I said I can't update very soon, but still, once a month or such seems an agreeable deal to me!

As usual, the chapter is rather unbetaed - or better, I have beta readers, but no mother tongue one, actually. If some of you finds any mistake, please let me know!

**_Info about the story:_**

_writing status: _beginning of chapter 11.

_reviews received:_ 4

_hits: _over 400

As usual, **dedications** - since I received just 4 reviews, that means I can mention you all in my dedications!

**MacabrePuppet** - for being such a faithful reader!! Arigatou! And because you partially guessed right about this chappie...

** FunnyNeko **because...well, because, honey, there's no need for a real reason for you XD

** HontoKawaiiNekoChan **- SISSIJJEEE!!! (glomps) **  
**

**Flamer Cerberus **because...°° Wait...don't kill me...I'll update I swear! (runs away)

Yumi-chan

* * *

**  
CHAPTER TWO: DAY ONE**

_One day after._

_Three days before the party._

' _Balloons? Done. Drinks? Done. Food? Almost done, you just need to buy some pop-corns and nuts…'_

Renji sighed, deleting from his to-do list all the things he had already bought, arranged and completed for "the great event that would have been remembered for ages as the best party ever held in Soul Society".

He scratched his head with the back of his pen, then pondered about the list of things he still had to improve and set, underlining a couple of them and circling other two.

'_Priority number one: a freaking place to set this party in'_

he frowned, trying to think about a good and quite big locality to hire or "(il)legally occupy" for that purpose.

And he pondered.

And thought.

And squeezed his fatigued brains to find a proper solution.

He couldn't spend other three days with all those goods packed everywhere in his small house (that now looked more like a storage-room), could he? It wasn't his fault if he was so happy that, in half a day, he had practically emptied half of Soul Society's shops down in the Rukongai, right?

And no, sleeping while holding stashes of chips and coke was not an option. He had never had a Teddy Bear to hug, why should he start with a bottle of fizzy thing?

He shook his head and grabbed another piece of paper, scribbling on top of it, in messy letters, the word "Options". Then, he started writing down every single place his mind would acknowledge as big and suitable, comprehending also the Kuchiki Estate – erased from the list in less then two (milli)seconds – and the Headquarters of the First Division, gone as well in a few moments.

'_Okay…what's left? Let's see…We have the quarters of the following 6 divisions: the Sixth, the Eighth, the Tenth, the Eleventh, Twelfth and, last but not least, the Thirteenth'_

he quickly eyed at the paper, then promptly erased the fifth option, drawing crosses and writing various curses over the number "12", just to be sure he had exorcised it properly.

'_Ok, the following **5** divisions…' _

He narrowed his eyes and concentrated on his "impossible assignment", trying to figure out what was the best decision and progressively deleting the useless options

'_The Sixth? Mmmhh…No way, Kuchiki-taichou would leave to you the whole cleaning-task and you'd spend the next 48 hours regretting the idea of having had a party…So…the Eighth?'_

The sudden thought of a Bohemian atmosphere full of flowers and opium enchanted his mind and dragged him to images of absolute "peace-and-love-make-love-don't-make-war" with Rukia-chan. The thin smoke spreading around, the perfume of incense and flowers filling the air, Ise-fukutaichou showing up with a bar of steel and beating the living hell out of half of the guests, yelling words like "No drugs, you idiots!"…

He shook his head forcefully and erased the Eighth as well.

'_The Tenth?'_

Sure, if the decision was on Matsumoto-fukutaichou, that Division would have been turned into a branch of the nearest discothèque and party-house a long time ago. But giving that the Captain happened to be Hitsugaya Toushiro and Hitsugaya Toushiro was as icy as Hyourinmaru's Ban Kai, that opportunity was out of choice.

And yes, he was essentially a child and he was less tall than half an apple, but he was a Taichou. A short one, but still a Taichou. And you don't measure power on centimetres, right? Of course, if you did, Renji and Zaraki-taichou would have been the commanders of the whole Soul Society for a long, long time…

He sighed, then went on with his "research".

'_Good, now we have the Eleventh…'_ he pondered for a long moment, then bit on the pen he was using, glancing at the calendar once again. _'It is large indeed…'_

As large as the Taichou's shoulders, surely…

Was it really safe to organize a party in Zaraki's dominion? Renji's mind suddenly provided him the memories of his nice years spent in the Eleventh division. The happy moments when he chased Mandarame Ikkaku down the corridors and they got caught by their Taichou, finally experimenting the "long awaited" sensation of being bedridden in the Fourth division for two whole weeks with half of your body aching and the other half just refusing to show you signals of life…

Renji deleted that item with an approving nod.

'_So, we just have the Thirteenth left…Rukia's Division, by the way…'_

He circled the last option with a solemn motion and stared at those two numbers with a concerned face

'_She will surely feel at home there…' _he tapped with his pen on his own lips, raising both brows and looking at the ceiling.

He suddenly frowned in concern.

'_Too much at home...how am I supposed to impress her and show her my love if she is with her Taichou and all her fellows?' _

He glanced again at the paper

'_Maybe I should start considering the Fourth Division. It is big, Unohana-taichou is always so kind and she will probably allow us to celebrate Rukia's return in…' _Renji sighed _'In a hospital…Bathing in the smell of medicines…No, definitely not good…So…'_ he scribbled on the sheet _' You need to ask permission to Ukitake-taichou…and then…oh gawd…'_

He narrowed his eyes, virtually burning to ashes the following item on his list which said "Contact Urahara Kisuke to get alcoholic drinks".

A desperate expression took control of Renji's face, his brows frowning and his teeth playing with his lower lip.

'_Ok, like Kotetsu-fukutaichou said when you got that cavity cured: "the sooner I do it, the sooner it's over"…'_

The overwhelming pain, obviously, wasn't included in the quotation. He drew his Hollow-mobile phone out of his kimono and dialled Urahara's number, hoping he was already – or still, it depends from your point of view – at work at…

He threw a glance at the clock. 12.03.

..at midday. He patiently waited for the mobile to connect with Earth and for Urahara's phone to ring. Then, after a few seconds, the older man's gleeful voice resounded in his ears.

"Hello!"

"Hel-" Renji didn't manage to finish his sentence.

"This is Urahara's shop service for Soul Society's members! Welcome into the world of "Earth- made-handy-for-a-Shinigami!" If you need a gigai, please press number one…."

The read-head raised a brow suspiciously _'Since when does he have an answering machine?'_

"If you need some books press number two. For magic objects, the appropriate button is number three…."

'_Gawd… Who did suggest him this idea, now?'_ he sighed _'Ok, maybe I don't really want to know…'_

"Button number four, instead, is to have private information about the mysteries of life, such as sex, women and how to hide a deep relationship with your Taichou's daughter. If you want to personally know my assistants and talk to them, press number five and wait hopefully for Ururu to notice your call…."

Renji started tapping his fingertips on the desk

'_Why do I sense I'm lucky that telephone numbers just have 10 ciphers and not a whole bunch of 25 letters?'_

A sudden pause in the speech made the boy grab a hold back on reality.

Then, Urahara's voice echoed again.

"CONGRATULATIONS! I CAN FEEL YOU DIDN'T CURSE AGAINST ME YET! Anyway, I'm sorry, but there are not prizes for this record. If you need a new Shinigami uniform, press number six…."

'_Did he already sell his sanity?' _ he thought as he almost regretted the idea of buying some good alcoholic stuff

'_But, it's obvious: no alcohol means no fun'_.

He sighed.

'_And no guts to declare to Rukia-chan…'_ he decided it was wiser to wait online for a real person to talk to him.

"If you need your Soul Cutter to be fixed and/or polished, your button is surely number seven!" a sigh could be heard "If you just wanted to talk to me, I'm sorry I had you waiting so long. Just press zero and go ahead." Renji finally sighed in relief pushing that button.

If he hadn't been a God of Death himself and living is Soul Society, he would thank someone in Heaven from having helped him.

_o-o-o_

"So, in name of the power I have received from Yamamoto-taichou himself, I order you to go out with me!"

Byakuya solemnly pronounced.

An awkward silence, then, spread around as the black-haired man frowned at his reflection in the huge mirror of his own room. He didn't exactly know why, but he sensed something wrong in that poor attempt of "expression of his feelings".

He cleared his throat and arranged his Kenseikaan, then started again

"I, Kuchiki Byakuya, 28th heir of the noble Kuchiki clan, officially want to declare…"

Silence filled the air once more. He, Kuchiki Byakuya, 28th heir of the noble Kuchiki clan would declare what exactly?

He sighed and sat down on his bed.

'_I can't do it. I can't possibly manage to go through all of this!'_ he looked down at SembonZakura's blade lying next to him. '_Continence and abstinence! Those are the keywords, Kuchiki Byakuya!'_

And spend the rest of his life changing his nightly kimono and his blankets every single day?

No thanks. No, no thanks! He had a male pride and a family name to honour in any case.

'_My Clan's hopes rely on me and me alone!' _

Surely.

But who could _he_ rely _his _hopes onto? His blade vaguely shone in the dim light, almost apologizing for not being useful in such a situation.

The noble man shook his head then raised up again and stood in front of the bed.

"Renji, we have known each other for a long time and…" he suddenly frowned "Not good, not good…"

'_Can't you come up with something better? I don't mean anything exceptional, but at least something to convey the common standard of decency…'_

How could he expect his fukutaichou to accept – or, rather not to faint because of the news if his proposal was a complete nonsense of words with an utter lack of originality and, so to call it, "passion"? How could make Renji pay his love back like that?

'_I could buy him flowers…Or take him out for dinner…'_ he dryly considered, recalling to his mind all the good, polite things his manners taught him about "how to start a relationship".

But were that rules also comprehending the hypothesis of a "man-to-man" bond?

Surely not.

So, that basically meant, once again in his life his beloved principles and promises weren't so much of a help.

Why did he keep on clinging onto them, then?

If this question would have been asked by someone else, Kuchiki Byakuya would have probably shrugged and archived the matter under the label of "because it's the right way things must be done".

But, since he himself was the one proposing such a crucial and hard problem to his subconscious, the only rational reply couldn't be other than "Who knows? I've been told to act like that, and I simply stick to the orders".

Good.

Following the rules because his rules indicated him to do so.

He stared at his expressionless face reflecting in the mirror, trying to get out of that trivial and pointless speculation – since he had more important things to care about.

In fact, given the previous "attempted failures" in declaring or, at least, spill out his feelings, it was time for him to work hard and intensively.

It was like a "Ban Kai" of his soul.

With the only difference that, this time, he didn't have ten years to improve his technique. But, if Renji and that Kurosaki ryoka achieved their real Ban Kai in three days, it automatically meant he could in any case _try_ to get a hold on his pride and suppress it for the necessary time to free his soul from that burden.

Possibly without pathetic scenes and over-sentimental pronouncements involving the words "I", "love" and "you" said all in a row.

As he arranged again a handful of rebellious hair, a sudden idea flashed through his mind.

'_What about writing it all down?' _

He (almost) nodded to himself and (almost – it was no un-noble-like!) rushed to his desk, drawing out a paper and his black, polished fountain pen.

'_From: Kuchiki Byakuya-taichou, Sixth Division_

_To: Abarai Renji-fukutaichou , Sixth Division_

_Subject: . . .'_

He shook his head and folded the sheet, tossing it in the trash bin – scraping wasn't really an option for a noble man – then looked again questioningly at the mirror, as if the shiny object was somewhat expected to give him some suggestions.

'_To be or not to be'_ his aristocratic reminiscences of Shakespeare hinted him _'Or rather: to say or not to say. That is the question.' _

He had always had a deep understanding and respect for Hamlet's doubtful speculations and, back at the Academy, while the others students were sleeping and shamelessly drooling all over the desk during the class concerning Foreign Literature, Kuchiki Byakuya had always been attentive and carefully took notes on how hard it was to decide between a known nightmare called "life" and a mysterious uncertainty called "death".

But now, quite a few centuries later, the feeling was different: what would have Hamlet done if he was to decide between declaring to a person of his same gender which, as if that wasn't enough yet, was also his direct subordinate?

Kuchiki-taichou sighed in defeat, finally realizing not even his literary memories were much of solace. He felt somehow a sort of precursor, the first male being ever doomed to move his uncertain feet over that big, black, swallowing abyss.

Was that a sort of mission?

Probably.

Or, at least, if he tried with all of his being to consider things that way, maybe he would have avoided half of his useless thoughts.

So, full of this new, titanic spirit, he stood up again and glanced with nobility and pride at the big mirror.

"Renji" he started again " As you probably noticed a long time ago…"

He was forced to pause.

'_Did he really notice something?'_

Memories of his fukutaichou talking about Rukia, thinking about Rukia, writing and scribbling Rukia's name all over the official reports and probably even secretly _drooling _over Rukia, started playing in his mind. No, definitely Renji didn't notice a single thing…

'_Anyway…'_

He cleared his throat then began again to speak

"Renji, as I would have liked you to notice a few weeks ago"

'_So my task would be easier now…'_ he thought

"even if it wasn't my intention at all…"

'_I had tons of wet dreams about y-'_.

Kuchiki Byakuya shook his head with a certain violence, swallowing hard

"I started to develop feelings about you and I just thought it was about time to…"

'_Convince you to be a bit more submissive towards me…No, not that!'_

"…to confess it all to you, so you can.."

'_Effectively lay down in my fut- …Please, get a hold on yourself, Kuchiki Byakuya!'_

"… freely decide about what to do."

A heavy sigh followed his last sentence, then a sort of self-pleased smirk crawled on his face as he glanced again at the mirror.

'_It looks like I did it…' _

Sure.

Too bad the mirror wasn't Renji.

Or Renji wasn't the mirror, it depends on how you decide to consider it.

But still, it was a beginning, right? If he managed to confess to an evil mirror, what could have possibly stopped him to spill it all out to Renji?

'_Probably the fact Renji doesn't shine but breathes?'_

What a hard task!

But the strangest thing was that he was about to violate all his beloved rules again – and, possibly not just the rules – and he didn't even feel sad or scared.

He was about to try and hook up with another _man_ and he felt happy and, if the word could convey with his nobility, even _excited_. There was definitely something twisted in that lustful vice that, matter-of-factly, was little by little assuming all the shades of the addiction.

A sinful addiction, if he had to choose an adjective. But still, his mind soon returned to his original dilemma: confessing or living a shameful life sinking in the chasm of wet dreams and – who knows? – maybe, drowning in the most sinful of all sins – pleasuring himself, that was?

No, he could not surrender to such a dishonour! If the matter consisted in choosing the lightest problem, he was ready to pick Renji for sure.

He sighed, frowning and observing his Kenseikaan.

'_Almost for sure…'_

Byakuya hated it.

The indecision, that is.

If it was black or white, why did he always have to end up in grey?

'_Stop indulging! That's not like you!'_

As if falling in love with his male fukutaichou actually **_was_** like him…

He needed a solution – and a bit of **_re_**solution.

Things were slowly getting worse and worse and, if the concept wasn't still clear enough, even _worse_.

If the rumours – yes, _rumours_, since no one ever bothered himself with communicating the news to the only one who had the right to know… - spreading around his Division that morning were right, now Renji was even organizing a sort of party to celebrate Rukia's arrival.

Sticking to the mathematical and logical principles of brotherhood, if Rukia was going to a party, there was no way in Heaven or Hell to prevent Byakuya to go along with her; but this time, that wasn't just a "fulfilment of his brother's duties".

If Renji organized that thing, he surely decided to confess to his sister all his feelings.

And that was bad. Very bad.

Honestly, Byakuya thought Rukia wasn't in love with – _his_ – Renji, given that she was around that Kurosaki ryoka every now and then, but still it could be awful for Renji's mood to be rejected like that. Declaring to a dismissed boy wouldn't ease his task at all.

Anyway, if it was a war, he was ready to fight it until the end, which more or less meant that, if it was necessary, he would have delayed until the very end Renji's proposal and he would have used every tool he had – SenbonZakura included – to steal his fukutaichou's attention.

And hopefully also something more than that.

Alright then.

He had to restore his noble pride and, at the same time, try to conquer Renji?

That was the perfect occasion.

He would take advantage of that party to declare to him.

* * *

**_To be continued..._**

Usual Poll: what do you think is gonna happen next?

R&R, please. Feedback is essential!


	3. Day Two

And finally...I update again!!! Thank you for reviewing me and please, support me through this long adventure!

**_Info about the story:_**

_writing status:_ still beginning of chapter 11 - blame it on University and on the complexity of that chapter.

_reviews received:_ 9

_hits: _nearly 1000!

Dedicated to **Marin Liliz** - because she might be my stalker, following me from Y! Gallery, but she's the best stalker you could ever find! To **EnvyYanya**, because her review really flattered me!

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE: DAY TWO**

_Two days after._

_Two days before the party._

"C'mon…Yes, yes…that way! I like it, I like it!"

"R-renji-kun, I'm tired, my hands hurt!" Rikichi wailed, pleadingly looking at his fukutaichou.

"I…I agree…" Hanatarou blushed, licking his fingers clean.

The red-haired boy sighed, then shook his head

"C'mon, you lazy asses! You've been working just for a couple of hours! And you know I can't do it alone, geez!"

The little guys exchanged a troubled look.

"B-ut…" Rikichi started again "Why didn't you buy the cakes and sweets instead of making us prepare them?"

"Stop reminding me that! I already told you I finished all of my money in alcoholic drinks, goddamned Urahara and his prices! And stop eating the chocolate, Hanatarou-shortie!"

"Yes, sure!" the poor boy blushed even more and cleaned his fingers on the apron he was wearing.

Ok, on the apron Renji _forced_ him to wear.

"But…" he trailed on "Why are we baking 50 cakes?"

"Because I invited over a good half of the Gotei 13?" Renji answered sarcastically.

The two boys simply sighed in unison, then resumed their tasks, a painful look on their faces as they started again mixing eggs and flour and covering the cakes with liquid chocolate.

Abarai-fukutaichou silently looked at his "volunteers" and he couldn't help but thinking that, if he was dressed in red, he could possibly be mistaken with Santa… or at least with his bad son…

He shook his head at the thought and grabbed a small staircase and a few decorations to hang on the walls and ceiling.

Deciding what decorations to buy had been the hardest thing ever.

Well, after trying not to fall asleep on his reports after a royal hangover.

Not that he found particularly uncomfortable the idea of sleeping on a pile of sheets.

It was more like "not being in the mood" to be pierced by an angry SenbonZakura at 7.00 o'clock in the morning.

Anyway, among the huge assortment of "1001 ways to write: Happy birthday, Happy New Year, Congratulations, I love you, etc, etc, etc…", he had managed to find a decent decoration with a nice sentence:

"We MISSed you.".

Rather feministic, truth to be told, but it still was something, right?

In any case, the task of sticking ornaments around the room, given his horrible, horrible sense of space and balance, had turned out to be more difficult than convincing Ukitake-taichou himself to give him the place.

Luckily, that poor man, didn't ask him any money, because after the never-breaking debate with Urahara about the prices of the alcohol, he had got out of that completely broke.

But, if on one hand, he had managed to obtain the 13th Squad's meeting-room for free, on the other he had had to swear on his honour and pride to stick to the Division's rules.

"First of all" Ukitake had started "No screams, yells or irritating noises, comprehending also karaoke and high-volume of music. Got it?"

"Sure, got it." Renji replied, a fake smile painted on his face as he made a mental note to himself to remember and blame it all on the 11th Division if something wrong was going to happen.

"Good" Ukitake-taichou smiled as well, a bit more sincerely "Then, absolutely no drugs."

'_I can take it, I guess…'_

"Absolutely no drugs, roger"

"Third: no alcoholic drinks." The Taichou went on, serious.

Renji's inner self mentally slapped him for being stupid enough to buy alcohol without first making sure to be _allowed_ to take it.

But then, his internal mechanism went like _'How are we supposed to have fun without getting smashed ?'_

In the end, he had simply decided to remind himself to switch the labels with fruit juices as he falsely nodded to the white-haired man.

"Perfect, I'm glad you aren't debating on this few basilar points. I would like to remind you that guests have no right to enter the Division's private rooms as long as they're not members of the 13th Squad and that a respectful and ordinate behaviour is highly required if not recommended. Clear enough?"

"Crystalline as water, Ukitake-taichou!" _'That I have to drag Rukia-chan outside of the building if I want to do something with her…'_

"Last but not least: smoking is allowed just outside on balconies and on landings. And please, give my best greetings to Rukia, since on that date I'll probably be hospitalized for my usual check-up"

Renji had to admit that precise moment was the one he had enjoyed the most.

Not that he wished for the poor man to be sick and checked by Unohana-taichou – insert "shudder" here – but still, the idea of not having him around when trying to openly seduce one of his subordinates, was somewhat reassuring. If he managed to avoid Kuchiki-taichou that night, he would probably get to see the dawn of the new day once again.

So there he was, going up and down that small staircase hanging the big, paper-made letters on the wall and removing them after noticing they were never aligned with the previous one.

'_I'm losing half of my weight on and off this freaking staircase. My toned, sore muscles!' _he placed the second "S" a bit lower to match with the previous one and he got down again to look at the partial result of his "decorating-task".

'_It seems good, huh? Good job, Renji! Be proud of yourself! And you didn't even fall off the tricky steps!'_

Sure.

Something really to be proud of, being a fukutaichou and managing to decorate a room for a party.

Shouldn't it be at least worth a promotion?

_o-o-o_

"Good Afternoon, Kuchiki-taichou!" Kotetsu Kiyone bowed down, politely greeting the man as he entered the quarters of the 13th Squad "Ukitake-taichou is upst-"

"It's alright, Kotetsu-san. Might you just show me the way to the meeting-room?"

"Surely!" the girl replied, walking up to the stairs and internally cheering about the fact it was her to show around the mighty Captain of the Sixth Division and not that loud-mouthed mate of hers – Kotsubaki Sentarou, that is.

"As you can see, Kuchiki-taichou, Kuchiki Rukia-san's Division is truly a nice place to live and Ukitake-taichou surely is the most reliable, kind-hearted, nice man in here and…"

And Byakuya's mind, on the other hand, was roaming around completely different lands.

The great resolution he had taken 24 hours before or so, was now completely filling his thoughts, continuously switching between the categories "A man's duty" and "The worst choices of your life", the last one containing just the idea of promising to himself two opposites things he hadn't been able to fulfil, back then.

Not that he would ever admit it to anyone, obviously.

Anyway, talking about promises, Kuchiki Byakuya had just realized he managed again to tie himself up in one of his mental cul-de-sacs – without any possible solution able to save both himself and his honour.

'_Why always to me?' _

Because it's the fate.

Good.

'_And since when do you believe in fate?' _

Since it was handy enough not to blame it all – again – on himself.

He shook his head, dusting away his thoughts and absentmindedly blessing his usual aloofness which allowed him to space out without being caught.

'_That would be truly disrespectful and unsuitable'_

Meanwhile Kiyone was still blabbering and listing all the good and comfortable things this Division could provide, hoping this would reassure Kuchiki-taichou about his sister's welfare, but she just ended up looking like a saleswoman trying to sell the building to the best offer.

Honestly, if Byakuya didn't have a more than strong reason to be there, that flawless, endless speech would drive crazy his poor, strained nerves.

What was that reason, then?

To put it simply, since Rukia was now a member of the Kuchiki clan by every meaning, the family simply ordered her tutor – by the way, him – to check on that party's preparation. And it was up to him to follow his clan's orders, right?

And, since Renji was the one charged with that duty, Kuchiki-taichou couldn't complain at all.

"Here we are" Kiyone beamed all of a sudden, pointing with her finger at a long, narrow corridor

"Our meeting-room is that room with the blue door. Even if now there are some … _things,_ going on in there, it would still be my pleasure to show it to you, Kuchiki-tai-"

"Kotetsu-san! Kotetsu-san!" a small, blonde-headed shinigami run towards them, panting.

"Uh? Hinata-chan…what's wrong?"

The little girl stopped in front of them and quickly bowed at the two elders.

"K-Kotetsu-san…" she resumed "Kotsubaki-san offered to prepare a tea to relieve Ukitake-taichou's asthma, so I thought you would have liked to be informed about tha-"

"He _WHAT_?" Kiyone almost screamed, then, remembering the presence of a Taichou-ranked shinigami next to her, she blushed madly and cleared her throat, turning to look at the man next to her " I mean…Really? He did so?"

If Byakuya was a man like any other, he would have simply shrugged, adding a seraphic "Who knows?".

But since he was not a normal being, but a noble, aristocratic person, he simply and coldly stared back at her, slightly intercepting the murderous waves flying out of her body and sinisterly glinting in her dark eyes.

'_So different from her older sister…'_ he absentmindedly thought.

The older girl heavily sighed, steam metaphorically bursting out of her ears.

"Beg me pardon, Kuchiki-taichou, but it looks like I have some peculiar things to do right now." She finally uttered after a few moments "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but…"

"Go ahead, Kotetsu-san" Byakuya sighed and politely replied "I will be alright on my own."

The girl look puzzled at him for a few seconds, then simply bowed down and rushed back towards the stairs that lead to her Captain's office, dragging the poor rookie with her.

'_Alone…'_

was Kuchiki-taichou's first thought as he looked around the place.

'_Indeed, I gained the opportunity to stroll around alone in here. Good. I wonder if Renji is already setting things right for the party…'_

Suddenly, the mental picture of "Abarai-Renji-fukutaichou-sexy-worker-version" wrapped in a tight, blue, sweaty uniform feverishly hit his imagination, providing him chills down his…oh, well, let's say down his spine.

'_Kuchiki Byakuya, that's unacceptable!'_.

That sort of internal scream resounded in his head for a few moments, collapsing against his lack of power to control his own body and shattering in many, tiny, fragments: if his conscious could deny it over and over again, his body was _definitely less practiced_ in telling lies.

'_God, let him not notice this!' _the Captain thought, a slight blush tainting his pale, noble cheeks as he looked around again, this time with more precision.

Then, when he made sure no one was around, he sighed heavily and shifted his gaze lower, furtively peeking at the… _conditions_ of his…_lower body_…that is…

Stating that it seemed to be alright – at least at a first analysis – he mentally thanked the large size of his Taichou's coat, then decided to go straight on, check the preparations, go away as soon as possible from that "wicked temple of perdition" and …

And he stopped dead in his tracks after a few steps.

'_Ow…and what am I supposed to say when…I'll see him?_'

The astronomical void echoed in his head.

'_What about nothing?'_ his rational mind fiercely suggested as he took control over himself again and resumed his walking to the meeting room to…

To stop again a few meters farther.

'_That wouldn't be polite! What about your noble pride, Kuchiki Byakuya-**sama**?'_

Silence in his head again

'_And since when do you address to yourself as "-sama"?'_

His stern conceit made him move forwards for a handful of steps still.

'_And what is **he **going to say when he sees you? He will probably think – and he would be partially right – that I am a stalker! Me, a noble man, a stalker! Oh holy Gods!'_

A glint of anger tinged his expressionless face, noticeably contrasting with the fading blush on his cheeks, inducing him to leave behind every concern and get over with his duties.

The Captain rapidly approached the blue door and hesitated for a few moments around the handle, then he slammed it open.

The scene before his eyes, was surely worth a photograph.

Egg's shells everywhere on the ground, flour fluttering in the air like a white-ish mist, chocolate stains on the shiny tiles to indicate the crime was recent – and possibly, still fresh.

Two grey-headed boys, completely covered in pale dust, were furiously whipping some mysterious cream in some big bowls, alternately rushing towards a small makeshift oven set next to the big window which leaded out on a narrow balcony.

Then, to complete the nice picture, a certain red-haired shinigami was performing some difficult exercise of balance-keeping, ungraciously and ingloriously climbing a staircase and standing on one foot, muttering various, coloured curses against some nails which, evidently, didn't want to stay in place.

Kuchiki-taichou simply raised a brow, then loudly cleared his throat, hoping that gesture would make the three boys notice his presence.

And, certainly, they did.

The two grey-headed – who turned out to be Hanatarou Yamada, 7th seat of the Fourth Division and the Abarai-fukutaichou-obsessed-boy of his own division, that Richiki boy – immediately turned around, eyes widening.

Then, they simultaneously bowed down "Good afternoon, Kuchiki-taichou!" they promptly said, the big bowl of chocolate slipping off Hanatarou's hands and collapsing on the floor with a stern 'flop'.

Byakuya impassively stared at the scene, then went to open his mouth, but a loud scream prevented him from talking.

"SHORTIE! WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?"

Renji turned around on his foot and pointed at the poor boy with his hammer

"IT'S THE THIRD BOWL OF CHOCOLATE YOU SPILL! GAWD, AREN'T YOU EVEN FREAKING ABLE TO-" he suddenly noticed the presence of a fourth man in the room.

In less than a second, Byakuya could witness the priceless changing of Renji's face: a complete series of colours – from red to blue, to green, to violet – sprawled on his cheeks, his eyes and mouth as wide as a car's lights.

Then, he started muttering something nearly recognizable as an apology and glared as his two little helpers as if it was their fault not to have warned him.

"K-Kuchiki-taichou, good morn-afternoon!" he started, still frozen in his difficult position on the staircase.

"Good afternoon, Renji" the noble man replied, raising a brow. "I see you are busy…" a quick glance around "… _working_…"

"Sure, Taichou!" the red-headed beamed back, slightly relieved he was not going to die in a few seconds "We are indeed working very ha-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" as he was completing his sentence, he suddenly moved, drawing back and…

And falling off his four-steps-high staircase, heavily hitting the ground with his face.

"Ouch…" he muttered against the tiles "My…nose…"

Kuchiki Byakuya just stared at the scene, a surprised look spreading on his face and taking the place of his usual aloof expression.

'_At least you were supposed to impress him. Not to have him impressing the dent of his face on the ground!'_ his mind registered.

Luckily, the embarrassing silence that filled the room was broken by "Hanatarou's sense of duty" which induced him to stumble into the spilled-bowl and reach the older man.

"Abarai-fukutaichou! Are you alright? Maybe it's safer to move you to the Fourth Division for some chek-"

"Never…" was Renji's simple answer as he painfully parted his nose from the ground.

"But…there is Unohana-taichou today and she surely is a good medic, she could…"

"No! Which part of 'never' are you unable to grasp?!"

"But you're injured, you could have a broken nose or cheekbone or some damage to your tee-"

"WANT ME TO DAMAGE YOUR HEAD, YOU-" Renji grabbed Hanatarou's collar and lifted him a couple of inches in the air.

Then, his mind must have suddenly reminded him he was in front of his taichou, for he dumbly smiled and released his grip on the boy

"I mean, no thanks, Hanatarou. I don't need any help."

The poor boy quickly nodded, his eyes widened in fear as he almost hid against Richiki and behind Kuchiki-taichou.

"A-Abarai-san?" he ventured again, very hesitantly.

"What?" Renji replied, a clear angry tone in his voice.

"Y-your nose is bleeding…"

As soon as Byakuya's mind caught the words "nose" and "bleeding" next to each other, he seemed to be suddenly drawn out of his "half-comatose" state of mind.

And thrown in a completely dazzled condition which implied several thoughts concerning how many other pleasant ways he knew to make Renji's nose bleed as well.

The red-headed Shinigami, instead, simply wailed and pulled out of his pocket a piece of cloth hardly recognizable as a kerchief, shoving it up his nostrils and muttering some bad words in a – cute? – never-before-seen, nasal tone.

Kuchiki-taichou forced his mind on more innocent tracks and pointedly looked at the other boy, clearing his throat once again

"So, how are things proceeding, Renji?"

" Quite well" he murmured, head thrown back to stop the annoying bleeding.

"S-sorry to interrupt you again, Abarai-fukutaichou" Hanatarou trailed "But you should hang your head down and not-"

And-not-disappoint-Abarai-Renji-in-this-moment, the red-headed glared, inducing him to shut up.

"We're halfway done with the baking thingie and the decorations are…" he resumed and slightly turned around.

A letter was still half-hanging on the wall, half-threatening to fall on the floor dragging with it the whole sign. Renji glared at the thing as if his "powerful scowl of doom" could fix something.

The paper trembled a little – evidently in fear – and fluttered on the ground, without causing further damage.

Abarai-fukutaichou sighed in defeat. "…The decorations are still something we need to work on…" he mumbled.

" I see…" Byakuya simply stated "Rukia will arrive in the late morning, so at least I expect you to give her some hours to rest and accomplish her family duties, before dragging her to this whole… "chaotic gathering"…"

'_As if you weren't going to take her here personally…'_

Renji's mind mockingly stated. "Sure, I will!" was instead what his lips pronounced.

He still needed to learn how to counter his Captain, that was.

But right now, given the "not-so-noble" purposes he was trying to pursue with said Captain's sister, it didn't look to him like the brightest option.

"Good" Kuchiki-taichou replied, both his real hands along his sides and at least three metaphorical ones trying to keep together his pride and prevent him from having fantasies about his subordinate or, worse, jumping him. "It's decided, then. Just clean up this mess before inviting the guests, Renji."

"Sure, Kuchiki-taichou".

The reply came out of his mouth as if he was talking to his worried and pedant mother.

But, that day, fate was brightly smiling at him, considering that Byakuya's mind was pretty much rampaging, flinging the poor man in the pre-pubertal state of "hormonal teenager".

Comprehending also the "Don't look, don't talk, just walk" refrain which more or less should have helped him not to attempt to Renji's sake right there and now.

The older man simply nodded and, after an unaware glare – or urge to escape? – at Rikichi and Hanatarou and a couple of sceptical glances around the room, he simply left, without a further word.

_When the door clicked closed behind his shoulders_, an embarrassing silence filled the air and just to get broken a few minutes by Renji's annoyed screams and curses against half of the living and un-living beings in the whole Soul Society and by the terrified voices of the two, unlucky, miserable helpers that rushed back and forth at Abarai-fukutaichou's biddings not to have to go through a God-knows-how-mean punishment.

But what no one ever knew – probably not even the Mighty Lord – and will never know, was that, _when the door clicked closed behind his shoulders_, Kuchiki Byakuya-taichou wailed in relief.

* * *

**_ To be continued..._**

Poll number one: What do you think it's gonna happen next? Little clue: IchiRukia fangirls and fanboys...you'll have to treasure chapter four!

Poll number two: . .You! Naughty fangirls! Let me know how many of you did have DIRTY THOUGHTS reading the first few lines...(evil chuckle)

R&R See you next month!


	4. Day Three

Here we go with our monthly update!

**_Info about the story:_**

_writing status:_ Guess what?! Again beginning of chapter 11 - good news are that I changed the scheme of the chapters and so actual chapter 11 is what should have been chapter 12

_reviews received:_ 15

_hits: _nearly 1800!

Dedicated to **Marin Liliz** - because today it's her BIRTHDAY! YAY!! To **EnvyYanya**, sorry if I didn't reply to your e-mail, but I have been busy! I accept the beta offer. I'm sorry for this chapter (I had to update today, due to my friend's B-day), but you can beta it the same, send me the new version and I'll correct! To **Shichimaru Gin** - you rock, girl!

_Important note_: I don't like IchiRukia. It's the pairing I hate the most - due to Rukia, I can't stand her...But this relationship was useful to my plot...so, IchiRukia fangirls and fanboys out there, this is probably the only real IchiRukia "serious" action in this story. Maybe something will happen in future chapters.

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CHAPTER FOUR: DAY THREE**

_Three days after._

_One day before the party. _

Late afternoon, a dim-lit room.

A slender, small figure was wandering around, her hands opening drawers and closets, folding and pulling out objects, tossing them in a large bag placed on the floor.

She worked silently, furtively looking around from time to time, to make sure no one was coming.

Not that she was regretting what she was actually doing – she _needed _to do that – but if _someone _would find out that, it would have been…

"Yo, Rukia!" a male, sensual voice came from the door.

The figure cursed under her breath, then turned around.

Yeah, it would have been _exactly_ like that.

'_Thanks, fate!'_ she thought.

"Hi, Ichigo" she forced a smile on her lips as she folded another t-shirt and tossed it in her piece of luggage.

The orange-head walked up to her and sat on the bed.

She stopped for a moment, pretending to attentively study a blue kimono.

'_Please, at least let him NOT remember **that**…'_

"So, already packing?" he asked, a wicked smirk on his face. "You promised me you would wait until I was home, Rukia…Didn't we have to do something before…_this_?"

Yes, in the end he _did_ remember.

Oh, crap.

The girl sighed and closed one of the drawers by lightly swinging her hips.

'_Thanks again, Mr Destiny!'_

"Yes, I am almost done, truth to be told…" she tried to make those words roll out of her mouth as indifferently as she could – and, of course, without looking at him in the eyes.

"I see…" Ichigo tilted his head and grinned "Well, considering how fast you were, that just means we have more time to do…_what_ we had planned to do, right?"

Rukia sighed, trying not to show him she was shivering, or…

'_Gotcha…'_

"Are you cold?" he smirked.

"Because you know, there _is _a way to warm you up…"

She trembled again.

'_Ok, enough!' _her mind suggested.

She abruptly turned around to face him, possibly yell at him enough to make him regret all of his naughty thoughts and…

And she did the worse choice ever, because she knew quite well she couldn't resist _that_ look.

That mischievous, wicked, tempting look, to be exact.

"Stop it, Ichigo" she managed to spill out, rather coldly. "Should I?" he plainly pretended a tone of nonchalance and laid down on his own bed "It's not me who doesn't keep his promises…" he casually hinted.

"I didn't promise" was Rukia's stern reply.

"Sure you did" Ichigo flashed again one of those bright grins of his "Multiple times. Or rather, you screamed it…"

Her cheeks flared with a bright shade of red "Ichigo!" she squeaked, eyes widening.

"What? You did it for real. Are you denying?"

"Am not!" she fiercely frowned "But that wasn't…meant! You were…you were…"

"I know pretty well what I was doing, Rukia…"

The girl flinched and glared at the clear hints of smugness on his smiling face.

'_Oh Gods, I'm going to erase that smirk!'_

She walked a couple of steps up to the bed.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she glared at him, fists firmly placed on her hips as she approached the mattress a bit more, bending on his laying figure in a pitiful attempt to sound more threatening "I said I didn't mean that and-"

"And…ooops. It looks like you fell down…" Ichigo stretched out one of his long legs and made her stumble and land on the bed.

Ok, land on_ him_, who was on the bed. Then, he simply wrapped his arms around her waist

"Are you hurt, you distracted-head?" he smirked again

"You jerk!" she grumbled "Let go! Let go of me, you bastard!" she started to struggle and writhe in his grip, much to his amusement.

"How so?" he mused "I'm comfortable…"

Of course he was.

Sprawled on his bed, with Rukia unwillingly straddling him and delightfully squirming while his hands alternatively tasted a bit of her bare skin with every shift of her small body.

Hey, it wasn't his fault if her shirt was rather short today, right?

'_Do you know other ways to bring Heaven on Earth?' _

Apart from crushing Soul Society and move all the Shinigami in there, that is.

Anyway, talking about Soul Society, why did Rukia have to go back there?

When no voice answered him inside of his head, the question simply slipped out of his lips – casually – and caused the girl to stop for a moment her task of squirming and hitting him.

"Because I have to show up and demonstrate I'm still alive and breathing. And you know, Nii-sama is anxious to-"

"Kuchiki Byakuya is never anxious" Ichigo pointed out.

'_Since when does he argue about shades of meanings?'_

Rukia's mind wondered as she sighed and sat on top of him

"Ok…Because Nii-sama, can't wait to see m-"

"Ow…He can't?" the orange-head smirked.

'_One…two…three…Calm down, Rukia…Willpower and calm down…'_

"What I am trying to say is that-" she trailed on, closing her eyes and inspiring deeply.

"Were you trying to say something?" he interrupted again, his smile broadening in a large, mischievous grin

'_Oh…he is going to pay for this one…he is SO going to pay!'_

"Ichigo, I was serious. Nii-sama is truly awaiting my-"

"Kuchiki-taichou doesn't await, Rukia, that is".

The boy simply stated with a rather bored sigh.

'_One…two…two and half…three…three and a quarter…THE HELL!' _

Rukia's nervous system snapped and her cheeks tinged with a deep shade of furious red.

"ICHIGO!" she whined, eyes widening "weren't we freaking supposed to do something _else_?"

'_Ok Rukia. You did it. Do you find some sort of consolation in being the sacrificial lamb of the situation?'_ she scolded herself tiredly.

He seemed to ponder for a while, his wicked gaze scrutinizing her face "Uh…sure…I almost forgot it…" he smirked again, making her blood literally _boil_ in her veins "What about some training?"

"What?" she couldn't help but squealing again, since she wasn't expecting that kind of reaction at all – her eyes going so wide you could misunderstand them for car-lights.

Ichigo laughed.

He simply, truly, deeply, annoyingly laughed.

He laughed enough to make her frown and glare in contempt.

Then, in a blink of an eye, he took a grip of her shirt and dragged her down for a kiss. A rather passionate kiss, to state it from Rukia's point of view.

"You…You bastard…"

_o-O-o_

"Next time I want to reincarnate as a koala" Renji muttered to himself as he tiredly dragged his strained ass up the stairs of his Division and walked to his desert office "A lazy-assed, foliage-chewing, not-engaged-in-any-productive-activity koala…"

Definitely, life as a Shinigami was too much for him.

And, considering he also was a goddamned and low-paid fukutaichou, it was even worse.

"Taichou is mean" he went on as he sprawled on his chair and pitifully glared at the mountains of paperwork towering on his desk "How can he be so cold-hearted to fill me with hideous stuff to compile after the long, long day I had to bear setting the last things right?" he paused in front of a folder and sighed in defeat "As if he was jealous of his sister" he mumbled, pouting. "If no one ever organized something nice for him, it's not my fault!"

Poor Renji.

How could he know Kuchiki-taichou was just plainly angry because he didn't get to see his "beloved" fukutaichou for half a day due to the party thing?

Renji sighed again and mechanically started to sign and stamp multiple, who-wants-to-read-them documents.

'_If only Rukia was here…At least I could ask her to go out and drink something with me, later on!'_

He imprinted a couple of "APPROVED" stamps on something and closed the first pack of documents, opening the following one.

'_But NO! She is with mandarin-head!' _

He stamped a "REJECTED" so hard the desk trembled.

Then, he stopped for a while and looked at the ceiling

'_Geez, life is a sufferance, indeed…if only…'_

Insert painful sigh here

'…_if only I could hear her voice, that is…'_

The unavoidable silence answered his unspoken question, making the "desolation-level" in his blood raise vertiginously.

'_Life is unjust … I can't even hear her voice!'_

Pause.

His eyes lazily started wandering around the empty room, trying to count how many ants he would have needed to fill the space separating him from the phone hanging on the opposite wall.

Nothing was too useless to avoid paperwork, that is.

'_So…' _he considered _'Supposing an ant is long a couple of millimetres and approximating the length desk-wall to a couple of meters, then to reach the phone, we would nee-'_

His mind suddenly froze.

'_Wait, wait, wait…Did I say…'_ his lips curled into a wicked grin _'…phone?'_

A couple of milliseconds later, Abarai Renji was standing next to said phone, dialling the number of the international switchboard.

As he waited to be connected, a rush of regretting thoughts started filling his mind

'_M-aybe…maybe I shouldn't, in the end…'_

Painful sigh

'_Maybe Rukia wants to be alone to get ready …'_

Mental silence. His evil self emerged.

'_Alone.'_

He stated again.

'_With Kurosaki Ichigo'_

Pause.

'_Alone with Kurosaki Ichigo'_.

Mental black-out

"GYAAAH! WHY THE HELL IS THIS GODDAMNED THING TAKING SO LONG?!"

He exploded. Out loud.

" . . . Good . . . evening" a nice, female voice just answered in that moment "Here the "I-triple S"…" (A/N: I-triple S: International Soul Society Switchboard. Smart, huh? XD).

Awkward silence

"…May I help you?"

"Good evening, here the Sixth Division." Renji cleared his throat in embarrassment "Could you please connect me with Karakura town?"

"Sure. It is my duty to inform you the call will have a high cost because of the distance."

Noise of keys hit

"Are you going to debt it on someone's list?" the secretary went on.

"Sure…" Renji's grin went wider and wider "Kuchiki-taichou's"

"Perfect. Done. Who do you want to contact?"

"Kuchiki Rukia, please."

"OK."

Dialling sounds

"Wait online…"

_o-O-o_

"You….jerk…"

Rukia panted as she parted from their hundredth kiss and raised up both her arms, allowing him to slide off her shirt.

There was no point in struggling or arguing on that, she came to learn after a few ripped-off garments and torn clothes.

But that didn't mean she would surrender and bend to his will so easily.

"It's freaking _cold,_ you know?!" she spat out, fiercely, her best Kuchiki-like scowl – which, matter-of-factly, wasn't _that _much – painted on her face.

"Awww…." Ichigo smirked as he finally discarded her cloth somewhere on the ground "_Cold_, huh? But you know…" he distractedly reached down to caress her spine "The whole purpose of all of _this_ is to actually get you _warm_. _So_ warm…"

Feeling Ichigo's hands on her bare skin, Rukia suddenly went dizzy.

'_C'mon, hold on, Rukia! Don't surrender like that! Scowl! Glare. And. Scowl.' _

She closed her eyes and deeply inspired for a brief moment, then frowned at him again.

"You bastard! You wicked, perverted bastard!".

The boy looked at her with a curious expression and stopped his ministrations for a moment.

Aww, great, she was so proud of herself!

She did it!

She said it!

'_Good…That's how things should work…' _

Smug, smug, smug

'_Hell yeah!'_ she mentally indulged in that not-so-noble-expression with a certain satisfaction.

'_Hell yeah!'_

Ichigo smirked.

Her eyes widened a bit, an uncomfortable feeling of something bad approaching filling her body.

'_Scowl! Now!'_

She resumed her "activity".

'_Yeah!'_

Ichigo grinned and then stared at her. Rukia stared back, cautiously pondering on her next move.

'_Number one: stop quivering' _

Done.

"Sooooo" Ichigo started to talk "You said…'pervert', right?" his finger tracing her lips.

'_Composure Rukia. Willpower. Composure.'_

She trembled.

Again.

'_Hell!'_

Ichigo lifted up a bit from his laying position and cupped her cheek, that acid smirk of his still firmly imprinted on his face. He leaned forward, his hot breath caressing Rukia's ear.

'_Hell? Yeah!'_

She shivered in anger – delight? – then completely froze as his tongue started tracing her earlobe.

'_Emergency! Chill out, Rukia, chill out! Resist. Calm and resist. You don't have to surrender! You don't have to…'_

"Pervert, huh?" he whispered "You don't know how much…"

She surrendered, giving up in less than a second all the good purposes of half an hour of struggled making-out. She threw her arms around his neck and pushed him down on the mattress, kissing his lips and collarbone.

Ichigo consequently tightened his grip on her waist and reached to undo her skirt's buttons.

'_Oh gawd…'_

Rukia faintly rolled her eyes and battled back, trying to win their little fight for dominance by removing his shirt and trousers.

"Jerk" she fought against the evil, evil clasp of his jeans "Blackmailer. Bastard. Jerk!"

He smirked "Liar. Bad, bad liar" with a quick motion he undid her bra, stealing a surprised gasp from her lips "we both know you want it"

Rukia scowled.

Oh, she felt like yelling at him.

She _so_ felt like yelling at him!

If only he _wasn't _right, that is.

The orange-head covered her hands with his and guided her motions along the zip, finally helping her to get rid of his pants.

"You are going to pay for this" she mumbled as she leant forward to envelope him in her small arms. Ichigo smiled, then hugged back

"Ooooh…We need to quench all this excess of dominance, lady…"

He earned another stern glare.

Then, Rukia sighed and buried her face in the crook of his neck, openly admitting her defeat.

"Just get over with it" she said earnestly and dryly.

Owww…Ichigo was _so_ waiting for that.

"My pleasure to accomplish your desires" he mocked "Especially given that I won't be allowed to for the next…10 days, right?"

He felt her nod and, recharged of a full spirit, his hands started to cautiously wander on her small but well-shaped body, tracing outlines, muscles, lumps of soft flesh, sensitive spots.

Every stroke stole from her a pleasured sigh.

"Bad liar" he stated again – but more gently – as he caressed the tender skin on her stomach.

Rukia couldn't help but smiling and shivering under his touch.

His divine, expert, soft touch, she had to admit.

She sighed.

"Bastard" she remarked "But I love you".

Ichigo grinned "Love you too and-"

_BEEEEEEEEEEEP_

A loud beeping sound filled the heated atmosphere, inducing the two lovers-in-love to pause their ministrations.

_BEEEEEEEEEEEP_

Rukia seemed to emerge from her hazed state of pleasure and recognized the sound of her inter-dimensional mobile.

So did Ichigo, for, as soon as she stretched out her hand to answer the cruel phone, he grabbed her wrist.

"Leave it" he bid, quite pissed.

"But…" she started, glancing at him with wide, worried eyes "It's surely from Soul Society! It could be something important!"

Ichigo rolled his eyes, cupping both her breasts

"More important than this?" he mocked, trying to dissuade his partner from interrupting that pleasant, pleasant moment.

Rukia whimpered "I-Ichigo…I….I don't know, maybe Nii-sama got sick, or Renji is wounded or …. Maybe they want to cancel my departure and…"

And the mobile kept on beeping, annoying the hell out of Ichigo.

He hissed, then grabbed the pink phone, handing it to Rukia with a deep scowl

"Short" he mumbled "And quick. A thunder."

T

he black-haired girl nodded and pressed the answering button.

"Hi…" she half-breathed, half-panted.

Yeah, the fact Ichigo was still caressing her bosom, wasn't helping her composure.

Not at all.

"R-Rukia?" a male voice tentatively asked.

Her eyes went wider and wider for a few seconds, then she slammed them close and started rubbing her temples in a pissed manner.

"Hi, Renji…" she tried to sound as nice as she could.

In the end, it wasn't Renji's fucking fault if they stopped in the middle of things, worried about something happening in Soul Society, right?

She sighed.

Or maybe, Renji _had_ to tell her something important.

Maybe.

"So…is there something wrong?" she ventured, amenably ignoring Ichigo's protests and murderous glare at the mention of her friend's name.

_o-O-o_

"So…is there something wrong?" her voice came from the phone.

Renji was _ecstatic_.

Probably _more_ than ecstatic!

Rukia…_his_ Rukia was now talking with him!

His ego was indeed doing the happy, happy proud-boy dance.

"Errr…..wrong? No, nothing….Why?" he mumbled, trying to muffle the hints of pure worshipping in his tone.

There was a little pause on the other side, then an audible sigh.

"What did you call me for, then?" she questioned, her voice shaky and a bit panting.

'_Maybe she was fightin' some friggin' hollow…'_ he pondered _'Though I don't hear noises around her. So maybe she was just coming back and rushed to pick up my call…Or maybe…maybe…GYAH, GET OUT OF IT RENJI AND ASK HER!' _

He cleared his throat.

"I…Did I interrupt something important, Rukia?"

_o-O-o_

Rukia heavily smacked her own forehead and laid back on the mattress, covering her eyes with her free arm.

'_Oh Gawd…Gawd, Gawd, Gawd…' _she plagued herself for a few seconds _'Tell me he is not sad and depressed again…at least that!'_

As if in reply of her thoughts, in less than a second Ichigo was over her again, his head on her shoulder as he tried to overhear her conversation.

She pointedly looked at him and, when he simply shrugged in return, her mind went like.

'_Wow…Is THIS supposed to be helping me?'_.

But she had the decency to shut up nonetheless.

"I…Did I interrupt something important, Rukia?"

Ichigo frowned and his male pride snapped.

'_HOW THE HELL?!'_ a not-so-little voice in the back of his head remarked.

Maybe it was because of the hollow-part inside of him.

Maybe because he had been interrupted during the glorious demonstration of his masculinity.

Or maybe, simply because it was Abarai Renji on the other side, but fact was that his rage started

rampaging – at least as much as his hormones.

"A lot" he mumbled, sucking on Rukia's neck "you fucking interrupted a freaking lot, you jerk!"

"Oh…Rukia…" Renji seemed to notice the orange-head remark "is there someone else with you? Were you in the middle of something?"

"Shhhh!" Rukia glared at her partner, then whacked him on the head, causing him to stop using her neck as a comforter.

Not that she really despised his motions, but making out during a phone call, maybe wasn't the best option.

She sighed.

Again.

"No…It was just…." Rukia ran out of words and started "MMMHHH-ing" until Ichigo pointed at the TV on one of his shelves. "…Just the TV, yeah" she nodded to herself, not even _mentally considering_ to thank the boy.

"Oh, I see…." Renji ventured on "I…I just wanted to know if you were ready for tomorrow and…ask you to be free in the night…"

Rukia raised both her brows, once again trying not to pay attention to Ichigo's complains –including various "cut-it-off" gestures such as the "I'll-slash-the-cable" and the "I'll-slit-your-throat" ones.

"I'm fine thanks and…How so?" she went on, politely.

Or surely, more politely than Ichigo tonguing her ear.

_o-O-o_

"I'm fine thanks and…How so?"

'_Because I organized the best party ever to impress you and finally declare my love!'_ his big, snooty ego emerged, but Renji restrained it with all of his might. _'No. Don't. No. Spoil. Surprise.'_

He paused a bit.

He felt pretty much as if he was talking to some strange alien who needed words to be spelled to catch their meaning.

The point was, his inner "smug-proud-smug" self, was now even _worse_ than that.

"I…" he started "I'd like to talk to you…I haven't seen you in ages, so…"

"Okay" she simply replied. "Got it"

There was something strange in her tone.

Odd.

Definitely outlandish.

Something like "annoyance-mixed-up-with-pleasurable-anguish-and-don't-know-what-else". His eyes widened

'_And if she was doing things with…boys?' _

Silence of doom

'_...OH GAWD!' _

He panicked for an instant, picturing his beloved, little Rukia held in someone else's arms, and shuddered.

Then, as a bit of composure took control of him again, Renji sighed.

'_Stop imagining things and cut it off. She said she is coming with you, what the hell do you want more than that?'_

"Oh, well…" he stuttered "I….well…" and stuttered some more.

'_Loose your goddamned tongue, Abarai Renji? C'mon! You can freakin' do it!'_ "

Ok, so" he resumed, inhaling as deeply as he could "See ya tomo-"

A beeping sound started playing in the background.

"Emergency phone call online for Kuchiki Rukia-san."

A male voice beamed

"The current one is going to be shut down in thirty seconds."

The secretary repeated

"Thirty seconds"

Both Renji and Rukia frowned, then, after a few clumsy words of dismissal, some half-pathetic "See ya soon" and a relieved sigh on Rukia's side, the phone was ringing again.

She picked up the mobile and looked, half-heartedly, at poor Ichigo who was actually pantomiming his own Harakiri using one of her hair-clips instead of a sword.

"Hi…" she started again, the feeling of deja-vu quite impressed in her mind.

"Rukia…?"a male, calm, well-known voice replied.

The girl stiffened, her eyes going as wide as car lights.

"Nii-sama!!" she blushed, immediately jerked forwards and sat down on the bed. Ichigo stopped, her hair-clip lingering in the air as he cocked his head a bit, frowning.

"Were you talking with someone else, before? I needed an emergency call to be able to communicate with you" he lightly scolded.

She panicked a bit, the sensation of being somewhat observed strong enough to induce her to cover her half-naked body with Ichigo's blankets.

"Oh, err…Nii-sama…I…Renji called over to see how I was doing…"

A long, long silence followed her answer.

o-O-o

"Oh, err…Nii-sama…I…Renji called over to see how I was doing…"

Byakuya gasped.

His mind played again and again that sentence in the back of his head, over-stressing every time the word "Renji."

He gasped again.

Then, his psyche was thrown in the depths of spiralling syllogism.

'Renji called Rukia.'

Pause

'My fukutaichou called my adoptive sister.'

Logic

'The person_ I_ love called the person _he _loves'

Panic!

'_Oh God, now I even admitted to my mind I am in love with him!' _

Double panic.

He cleared his throat as casually as he could, then tried to resume of "cool-speech-of-doom"

"I see…Anyway, we have more important things to discuss, right now, Rukia" he declared, smothering the pitiful wails of his mind suggesting him to gather some information about that call.

"Sure, Nii-sama!"

"Well…The dimensional gate will be opened tomorrow, 11 o'clock in the morning, same place you used for your arrival. Clear?"

'_Must not ask her, must not ask her…'_

"Yes, Nii-sama"

'_Just a little question…Pretty please?'_

Byakuya's conscious sighed.

If only he could strangle that little, evil, pleading ego of his…

"Good." He managed to utter "Very good. Just…"

'_Holy ancestors! Stop it, or…'_

"….Just? Is there something else I need to know, Nii-sama?"

Byakuya truly felt like sighing for real. If it wasn't for a noble appearance to hold, that is.

"Nothing else. Just…Did Renji…tell you something I should know?"

Then, he could distinctly hear his sister panicking and pondering for a while.

His mind immediately jumped to a conclusion.

'_He declared to her!'_

"N-No, Nii-sama" she ventured eventually "He just asked me to see him tomorrow in the night. That's all."

A conclusion that, luckily, appeared to be the wrong one.

"I see." He replied, trying not to make his relief seep through his tone "But I expect you to attend to the family's duties before that."

"Surely, Nii-sama!"

"Good. You may go, now. Goodnight"

"Goodnight, Nii-sama!"

Rukia hung the mobile and placed it on the nightstand, gaze glancing at the ceiling.

She sighed, finally tasting some – deserved – mental peace. She smiled to herself, then titled her head to the other side of the bed.

"I'm done, Ichigo!" she beamed "Where were w-"

Pause.

Rukia blinked a couple of times, then threw her head back on the pillow, hissing a long, annoyed breath

'_Boys…_'

Ichigo was snoring.

* * *

**_ To be continued..._**

Poll number one: What do you think it's gonna happen next? Little clue: The party begins...

Poll number two: ...was it that bad even if I don't like IchiRukia?

R&R See you next month!


	5. Day Four Act One

_**WELCOME TO THE MONTHTLY UPDATE!**_

Alright, it took me forever to update this, I'm very sorry. But bear with me, I've had many exams…(sniffles). I'm glad people seem to be liking where the story is going.

I hope I'll be able to write more of this soon.

_**Info about the story:**_

_writing status: _half-way through chapter 11. I'll start writing it again in March, when my exams will be over.

_reviews received:_ 24

_hits: _nearly 3000

**Dedications!**

To **RunAway Angels** – because she decided to draw pictures about this story and she's such a good artist! Please, visit her account and her dA!

To my dear beta-reader, **EnvyYanya **I know I'm slow updating the corrections, but forgive me. I'll do it during the week-end. Blame it on the exams. I've had TONS! (cries)

To** Nalakaori-chan **because I'm happy she found it a nice thing to read after a long day.

**Note!**

Oh, please, review! Tomorrow I'm gonna have a difficult exam – your feedback will definitely help! Thank you!

**ON WITH THE FUN!**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIVE: DAY FOUR – ACT ONE**

_Three days later._

_D-Day – act one._

It had been a long day. A long, long, long, long day. An everlasting day, we could say. It had started, as usual, at 8 in the morning, office.

Kuchiki Byakuya had ordered one of his rookies to prepare him a cup of healthy, soothing, hot Green-Tea.

He didn't know why but he had a bad, bad feeling about what he could find once entering his workplace.

'_I hope Renji is still…Normal. Hyperactive Renji is NOT something I can handle this early' _he paused around the knob and sighed _'Truth to be told, it's something I can NEVER handle…' _

Oh, so right. He slammed the door open and walked up to his seat, carefully looking around. Strangely, Renji was nowhere to be found. Ok, maybe not so strangely, given that Renji was _always_ late and probably this time he smartly had decided not to show up for work and prepare himself for the "great event".

Byakuya sat down and gave a sharp look to the pile of paper of his desk.

'_He is going to have a lot more paperwork to do, tomorrow' _he mused as he tapped his forefingers on the desk, getting impatient for his tea. _'Don't.' _he bid to himself as he noticed how childish his gesture was _'You're becoming enough rude as it is, working with Renji.' _

He sighed again and opened the first folder.

'_Dedicate yourself to work, Byakuya. Work is the nobility of a man's life!'_

And the boredom of every single day, even if he would never ever admit it.

But then, as he was about to start compiling modules, an odd, tone deaf voice came from the corridors, singing in high pitches

"I'm a lucky, luuuuuuuuucky boy! Lucky luckiness of luck, luck luck! My lady is baaaaaaaaaack! Lucky, lucky boooooooooooy!".

He didn't know why, but Kuchiki-taichou could almost see Renji dancing and strolling around on that horrible notes…

And, despite all the good purposes behind it, it _wasn't_ a nice mental picture.

If he was a man like any other, he would have probably sweat-dropped and hung his head down in defeat, but given that he happened to be the noble and prideful Kuchiki Byakuya, he simply stated his fukutaichou was going to pay with his own money in case of broken glasses and windows.

So, almost in premonition, Renji finally opened the door, a beaming, shining grin on his face and a cup of black coffee in his hands.

"Good morning, Kuchiki-taichou!" he said, practically spreading his joy around as if it was a poisonous gas.

Then, he flied and chirped towards the calendar and circled with stars and hearts the current date, exactly as a young fan-girl would have done with a meeting with her favourite singer.

Kuchiki Byakuya clearly felt it was the beginning of a long, long, day.

And he felt it right, because the whole morning was spent in the holy worshipping of the calendar and, this time, also of the window, given that Rukia was expected to enter the Seireitei around 11.30.

'_I'll fall ill and obtain an ulcer!'_ had been his constant thought.

So much he almost thanked the point when he had to leave the Division due to a family reunion to discuss Rukia's arrival in Soul Society.

What made him less happy, was the fact it meant leaving his Squad in Hyperactive-Renji's hands. But, as he came to learn, you can't obtain everything in your life, right?

On the other hand, as he could easily understand even without being a sharp mind-reader, his adoptive-sister was clearly all but happy about being back – even when she came to learn about the "big-astounding-party Renji had prepared for her arrival".

He didn't like to make random conjectures about Rukia's life, but he had a sort of sensation about something going on between her and that Kurosaki boy. Something that didn't imply Renji, of course. He couldn't help but smirking to himself at that favourable prospective.

The meeting had been exactly as usual. Long, pointless, formal. It came out Rukia would have been sent to Earth quite soon anyway, maybe because of Ukitake-taichou's orders or maybe because it was simply better that way. Byakuya would have pitied poor Renji, probably.

If he wasn't too occupied in being refreshed with his newly-revealed chances of success.

Eight o'clock PM, so, came in a blink of an eye.

As they went along and near the Head-quarters of the 13th Division, crowds of people from every Squad started gathering around in small groups, all clearly walking towards the same place.

Rukia looked pretty much like she was about to pass through the whole betrayal-debacle again and, effectively, the situation was quite giving the idea of being a concentration camp.

'_I wonder what Renji IS doing right now…'_

Kuchiki-taichou mused as they turned around the corner of the main street and …

And there was Renji, strolling back and forth in front of the main door, glancing at the clock at least twice a second and practically digging a huge trench with his very feet.

When Kuchiki Byakuya side-glanced Rukia and caught a small sigh coming out of her lips, his ego started indeed to sing the Royal March.

Then, Abarai-fukutaichou saw Rukia.

If that hadn't been such a plain sign of Renji's lack of interest for his Taichou, it could have almost been considered _comic_.

His eyes practically popped out of his orbs as he spotted the slim figure timidly wrapped in a light-blue, silken kimono, his mouth hanging open and a red, red shade colouring his cheeks in an unusual – cute? – blush.

He was clearly internally struggling whether to run to her or not, but, when he seemed to notice Byakuya's presence he probably decided for a sort of "aloof-composure".

Which meant he kept on providing the 13th Division a moat to fill in case of sudden Dragon-attack.

Kuchiki-taichou sighed and glanced again at the tense features of his sister.

'_The mission begins!'_

_o-O-o_

Renji's afternoon had been his longest afternoon ever.

Every detail, decoration, sweet, cake, switched-label had been checked, re-checked and controlled a third time just to be sure everything was absolutely perfect.

His two volunteers-for-their-own-safety had been forced to go back and forth all day long to check the guests' list, to wash and clean all the glasses/windows/floors and probably even walls Rukia had to pass by in her walk and, in the end, to hide every stash of coffee in a 10 kilometres range and buy some camomile and aspirins to soothe Abarai-fukutaichou's tension and hopefully to have him stop chewing gums, trembling and saying "I'll go on an I.V. of valium in less than five minutes!".

When everything in the 13th Division was done and his assistants had been threatened enough not to touch a single thing and almost decided to breath in plastic sacks not to humidify the precious air Rukia would have inhaled, Abarai Renji rushed home for a quick shower and choice of clothes.

But – he really, really didn't know why – he magically found himself spending practically three hours under the pouring water, rubbing every spot of his skin at least five times and even trying a traumatic approach with a bottle of perfume.

Then, it came to decently arrange his hair with hair-gel and to brush – furiously brush – his teeth and check each one with a good meter of dental floss.

Positive thing was that his "little delay" avoided him the painful, painful, choice of clothes, inducing him to grab a neat uniform instead of the bright-red kimono he had pondered about.

'_Good thing, at least you don't look like a strawberry'_ he thought as he was half-running (just "half" not to sweat) towards the Headquarters of the 13th Division _'Strawberry…'_ he mentally repeated _'Ichigo…GYAAAAAAH! I'M DEFINITELY GOING TO WIN HER HEART!' _

But, even with his impediment and a stop to buy her some flowers with some money he had discovered under a pot in the kitchen, when he arrived it was still awfully early.

So he checked everything twice _again_ and, for good measure, scared the hell out of poor Rikichi and Hanatarou _again_, then took a couple of aspirins with a cup of camomile.

_Again._

After that, maybe to quench the excess of energies still left, maybe just to provide him something to do while waiting for Rukia, he decided to go outside.

Nice weather, cool breeze…and the idea of smelling her same air again.

Renji was definitely going _insane_.

Every single _face_ reminded him of Rukia.

He started walking back and forth.

Every single _object_ reminded him of Rukia.

He was still walking back and forth and, when he was about to try a proposal speech to a door-knob…an angelic angel appeared in sight.

Wrapped in a wonderful, perfectly-fitting, light-blue, shiny kimono, she was fluttering and flying towards him with a never-before-seen graciousness, brightly beaming at him.

Renji could feel it.

Renji could totally feet it.

He was going to run towards her, pick her in his strong, muscular arms and…

And he literally _froze_ when he spotted Kuchiki-taichou walking behind her.

'_Gawd, that's torture!'_

And so what?

So he patiently waited for her to be near and greet her in the most polite way he could recall at the moment.

So he resumed his "try-to-be-as-normal-and-calm-as-you-can" walk back and forth.

'_Ten steps, eleven steps, twelve steps, thirteen steps, oh-my-gawd-why-is-she-still-so-freakin'-far steps…' _

But, in the end, she finally arrived.

o-O-o

The meeting between Renji and his sister had been rather thwarting.

They had dumbly stared at each other for a long moment, without speaking.

Abarai-fukutaichou was smiling as if he had received a heavy hit on his head and hadn't quite recovered yet. Rukia, on the other hand, was dully arranging the folds of her kimono and uncomfortably switching her gaze between the red-haired boy and the ground.

After some interminable instants someone finally decided talk.

"Hi, Renji" Rukia ventured, faking a shade of shyness to hide her uneasiness.

"Y-yo Rukia!" immediately replied Renji, beaming out of happiness for the broken silence "All right with ya?"

Rukia nodded "Yes, I'm fine."

Quietness again.

Byakuya simply kept on staring at the two standing in front of each other as if it was a sort of silent movie.

It was rather odd to be forced to witness to such an unrequited love and, surely, even pitiful considering the expression of total lack of intelligence and common sense painted on Renji's face.

He couldn't help but clearing his throat to try and put to an end that improper situation.

As usual, that little expedient worked properly, inducing Renji to quickly bow down and blabber something about the real party being inside the building – as if it wasn't_ plain_ and _obvious_ yet.

'_Thanks God I've never, ever reached this level of dumbness out of love and I'm not planning to'_

Byakuya mused for a second, climbing up the stairs of the 13th Division and following his Vice-Captain in the famous meeting-room.

As soon as the door slammed opened Kuchiki-taichou's eyes widened in surprise and shock and he felt like being thrown in a whole, different world.

Half of the 11th division was already there, unceremoniously drinking and eating sneaks and, as soon as the three of them entered the room, they didn't even pretend to stop or be silent for a moment and simply kept with their activities.

Honestly, Rukia didn't seem to care too much and when she spotted in a far corner Kotetsu Kiyone and a couple of other girls from her squad she immediately vanished to join them, leaving dumbly-smiling-Renji at the mercy of his greedy guests.

Not that his fukutaichou seemed to mind, in the end.

He immediately reached his friends and started to do what Byakuya could hardly, hardly define as socializing.

"Yo red-head!" a fat, bad-looking shinigami welcomed Renji with a rather indelicate and impolite pat on his shoulder.

"Heya, fat-ass" the boy replied, cheerfully "How ya doin'?"

"Rocking, rocking…ya?"

"Trying to get some chick, man…" Renji replied with a bright, dreamy grin.

Kuchiki-taichou frowned. Said "chick" wasn't _his sister_, right?

"Oooowww…you're again in the crowd, yo, Renji?" another shinigami joined the "highly cultural discussion" drinking some transparent, appealing juice.

'_Wodka?'_ Byakuya glanced at the clock. 8.15 pm. And they were already drinking.

Oh God…that was _the_ end.

"Drowning in the crowd, buddy! And ya? How's yar horny sista?"

"Usual, spilling blood and money out of the jack-asses of the 7th, boy!"

The two suddenly broke down in a long, pointless laughter, then Abarai-fukutaichou grabbed the other man's glass and, in the most total oblivion of every hygienically-correct measure, he started drinking as well, swallowing the liquid in a sole, precise motion.

"Lemon, ne? Ya can't get real lemons, so ya drink them, huh?" he mocked, slamming the small glass on a sort of makeshift counter.

Byakuya's eyes widened at that statement and he kept on staring at the scene as if he was conducing some sort of study on the sociological attitudes of savage, under-developed monkeys.

The boy laughed again, then licked his lips, grabbing Renji's collar to pull him closer

"Mmmhh…Why dontcha teach me, then, male-kisser?"

Kuchiki-taichou's jaw literally dropped and his hand automatically reached to firmly hold SenbonZakura's handle, trying to smother and/or ignore the murderous, murderous waves coming from the back of his head.

Renji, instead, simply rolled his eyes and sighed, getting free of the other man's grip "Again with that thingy? Gawds, ya know it! It was a freakin' bet, I was as smashed as a drunk ape and Ikkaku was still ridin' that huge joint, man!"

Byakuya gasped

'_Renji …kissed…Mandarame Ikkaku…'_ his mind registered, glancing again at the clock.

8.25 pm.

What was he going to discover by the time the party would end? Some horrible, horrible threesome involving Yamamoto-taichou and who-knows-who-else?

'_Holy ancestors…'_

He needed to get away from there.

Quickly.

He tossed a worried look around, trying to find a safe place to go to.

Girls giggling in a corner.

A couple already kissing in the other.

Renji and his "friends" next to him.

Hitsugaya-taichou in the farthest spot of the room, sitting down and apparently busy in the gratifying activity of counting the dots on the walls.

Byakuya's mind cheered up

'_Didn't I have to discuss important diplomatic matters about the 10th Division?' _

No, he didn't, but who cared?

_o-O-o_

"C'mon, tell us! How is it to stably live on Earth?" Kiyone beamed and poured Rukia some apple-juice.

The Kuchiki girl smiled and started sipping her drink

"Mmmhh…Normal…I mean, it's a matter of getting used, if you want my opinion"

"And…and…is it true you…you live at that…that Kurosaki's house?" a small tiny voice, probably belonging to a shy, red-haired rookie came from behind Kiyone's back.

Rukia suddenly blushed, memories of nights with Ichigo coming to her in lumps.

"Errr…" she stuttered "Yes, it's true…BUT WE AREN'T AN ITEM! NOT AT ALL!"

Ops.

She did it.

'_Crap!'_

A female, sensual laughter reached her ears as Matsumoto Rangiku joined the conversation

"Uuuuhhh…." She ventured "If you're not interested, why did you _chirp _such an…unnecessary apology?"

Rukia's eyes widened

'_Oh God…No…Please…not Rangiku! Among all girls not the evil gossip-spiller!' _

"It was just to be sure" she quickly muttered, sincerely hoping she could get away with that.

"Ooooohhh…" Matsumoto went on, pouring herself a glass of some alcoholic stuff and sitting on a chair, crossing her long legs "Cut it off already, Rukia. We didn't fall for it, did we?" she tossed an indifferent glance at the other girls around, stealing from them some shocked nods.

'_That's the end. That's **my** end…'_

Rukia unwillingly started to explain they had been "more than just good friends" since Aizen's debacle and the whole mission in disguise against Arrancars and trying not to make seep the fact they had sex together multiple times, even if, casting some shy glance at Matsumoto's enthralled and smug expression, she supposed they had probably smelled it all the same.

When her embarrassed explanation finally ended with a sigh of relief, the silence spread around their little group.

"Mmmhhh…." Rangiku seemed to ponder for a while "Do you know Abarai Renji organized this stuff just to try and hook up with you, don't you?"

Rukia's orbs went even wider.

'_WHAT?!'_

"You're kidding me" she simply replied, frowning.

"No, I'm not" the lieutenant went on, gulping down her last sip of drink "Didn't you see he is head over heels with you? Oh God, that must be blindness…"

The black-haired girl went silent for a while.

She had noticed something _unusual_ in Renji's behaviour, but, given that he had always been outlandish and unconventional, she didn't mind too much.

'_Oh Lord…If he is in love with me and I am in love with Ichigo…'_ she sighed _'Aaaah! What a huge, great mess!'_ she guiltily gazed at Rangiku _'And I guess Nii-sama already knew it…'_

_o-O-o_

Said "Nii-sama" was now sitting next to Hitsugaya-taichou in a remote corner of the meeting-room, every possible topic of decent conversation already discussed and actually occupied in trying to melt with the walls not to be involved in such a low, disgusting, terrible gathering.

From the few, discreet glances he had tossed at Renji's figure, Byakuya knew he was having some sort of fun, talking about missions – he wasn't telling them about that little "incident" in Tokyo, right? He felt his own cheeks flare – and probably bashing on his captain –_him_ – because criticizing even the slightest aspect of Zaraki's behaviour would probably mean death for the poor incautious boy.

'_I should be less permissive'_ he thought _'Definitely more… strict. Maybe Renji would show more obedience, that way…'_

Kuchiki-taichou sighed.

Now that the Arrancars had been defeated, his Vice-Captain had also stopped to worship him so much and to look at him as a barrier to overcome.

So bad.

At least veneration and respect could have been turned into love with some effort, right?

He sighed.

He wasn't talking about obedience just to hope to be able to "use his own power to force Renji in a futon with him", was he?

'_Stop it, Byakuya!'_

He shook his head, looking again at Renji peacefully joking with his mates – and trying not to blame it all on himself, musing about the fact that Renji was literally magnetic to him.

It was almost astounding in its simplicity, how he could be so attracted by him.

He had never imagined he could feel so involved in a sentimental relationship after his wife's death. Hisana had been all to him and she was still filling his life as a beautiful flower spreads his nice scent around the air in spring.

He would never love another woman, he swore to himself that awful day.

And he always kept his promises.

Always.

But, he had reflected about it multiple times already. He never mentioned being in love with a _man_, in his mental deals with himself.

So, it wasn't like he was breaking that vow, was it?

He somewhat felt reassured about those considerations, though they didn't solve at all the other matters and concerns regarding the moral correctness of all that situation.

"So, Kuchiki-taichou, why did you come to this gathering ?" Hitsugaya Toushiro's slightly bored voice shook him off his thoughts.

"Duties, Hitsugaya-taichou" Byakuya absentmindedly replied with a polite tone, pinning his elbow on the armrest of his chair and leaning his head on his hand.

The young boy seemed to ponder for some moments "It looks like the Kuchiki Clan didn't accept your sister yet, did it?"

'_No, Hitsugaya-taichou.'_ The older one mused _'I just want to avoid that my Fukutaichou manages to declare to my sister, so I can try to bed Renji at the first useful occas-' _his mind mentally slapped his ego again, forcing him to clear his throat for a moment.

"No, nothing like that." Kuchiki-taichou finally spoke "But it's my responsibility to look after her, and that's why I'm here. Besides, the one who organized it, happens to be my Fukutaichou – so I somewhat have to take care of him, too"

Toshirou raised a brow "Look after your Fukutaichou?" he crossed his arms over his chest "Honestly, I think a good Vice-captain shouldn't need the constant presence of his Superiors to act correctly. And, on this point I can totally trust Matsu-"

"YAAAAAAAH! THIS IS GETTING BORING!" Rangiku's voice suddenly came from the huge crowd in its usual high-pitches. "LET'S PUT ON SOME MUUUUUUUSIC AND GET THIS THING STARTED!"

A sudden rush of joy and various applauses spontaneously followed that affirmation, together with some clearly audible "Sure, baby, I want to start with you, too!", "Why don't we forget about music and play something upstairs?" and "Why don't you personally animate this morgue, boobie?"

Hitsugaya's jaw suddenly dropped and his face slowly started to match with his white hair.

He cast an embarrassed glance to Byakuya, trying to avoid the slightest hints of blush colouring his face.

Kuchiki-taichou, on the other hand, just stared back, his mind completely taken in the worried, worried thought of Renji whistling and wishing for Matsumoto-fukutaichou to enliven not just the party but also some unspeakable and ominous component of a man's anatomy – thought that immediately became fear to fail his mission the moment he couldn't spot anymore Renji among his "friends".

'_Red alert!'_ an alarm started flashing and beeping in his mind, together with the mental images of his Vice-Captain staining his sister's name and honour in some remote corner of the 13th Division.

He politely but hurriedly greeted his colleague and carefully started to stroll around the room, analysing every single spot and looking pretty much like a CIA-spy instructed to discover the secret hideout of some important and lethal criminal.

He tossed a worried glance to the girl's group and a second alarm snapped as he found out that Rukia wasn't gossiping and chit-chatting with the other ladies, who – he couldn't help but thinking – had illegally provided themselves the position of caretakers of the whole Soul Society, since they seemed to know everything about everyone.

Trying not to think about the fact he just came to learn by their as-discreet-as-a-pneumatic-drill chats that the real reason for Ukitake-taichou's frequent hospitalizations probably was a soft spot for Unohana-taichou and that trustworthy sources (a friend of a cousin of another friend of Kotetsu-san who told to have heard this from a nurse in the Fourth Division) assured that they had been seen together in a restaurant, he moved outside of the room – lingering just the slightest bit on the door to try to discover if those two had also kis-

'_Kuchiki Byakuya! Since when are you interested in gossip? Stop it, it's extremely impolite!'_

Anyway, they didn't kiss yet, so he could leave that place rather light-heartedly.

As soon as he was out, his first impression suggested him that, evidently, the 13th Division should have had some problems with the electric-bill, since, outside the meeting-room, the lights were so dim Byakuya needed all of his ability to sense a Shinigami's reiatsu to try and locate his Fukutaichou along those darkened corridors and hallways.

'_It's truly a marvel how I didn't collide with some solid surface yet' _the man mused, seriously tempted to find a new and innovative use for his Soul Cutter, employing it as a useful stick. _'I actually wonder how Tousen-taichou managed to walk along the whole Sereitei without accidents…'_

Anyway, after a few moments, some voices came to rescue him from that oceanic wandering-along-the-darkness…and tossed him in a complete status of discouragement.

"Renji, please! That tickles!" a female voice was vaguely coming from behind a corner.

A female voice Kuchiki-taichou could immediately recognize as his sister's.

"Oh….I….I didn't want to, sorry….I'll…try to be more delicate…" a gulp was clearly audible "Rukia…"

Yes, it was Renji. Unmistakably. And he was practically growling.

The girl giggled again, slightly but noticeably panting.

Byakuya's heart jumped in his throat and, if he wasn't sure to be the mighty, prideful and noble Kuchiki Byakuya he could swear his knees slightly wobbled.

"Oh, yes….just…..just don't brush so much….it's….ticklish!"

'_Oh My God…Oh my Holy God …Your ears must be giving you sensorial hallucinations, Byakuya. There's no other explanation'_ he resolutely thought.

Right, no other explanation, since even if his Fukutaichou was completely head over heels for his sister, Rukia was as clearly as the day _not_ interested in Renji whatsoever.

Unless…

'_Unless nothing, Kuchiki Byakuya! You must be confident in your intuition!'_

Sure.

But how come he didn't dare to peek round the corner, then?

His heartbeat was still playing heavy-metal music in his chest and, convincing himself it was just to be sure not to be found out, he leaned his back against the wall and kept on (over)hearing their "discussion" – deeply hoping it would not turn out to be a _session_.

"Alright, alright…Ya know? It would be easier if I could undress ya, but…"

Kuchiki-taichou's mouth hung open.

'_Undress as in…' he gulped 'Taking out…clothes?'_ he mentally kicked himself – because slapping wasn't an option anymore – and frowned _'What else is "undress" supposed to mean, then, in your opinion?' _

"But it's already enough embarrassing as it is, now, Renji!"

'_Stop them…For their and your own sake, stop them!'_

"Yeah, yeah, sorry…I didn't intend to….err….suggest things, ya see…"

'_Suggest…things? Which things?' _mental pictures of the most indecent and unbecoming "ways to show one's mutual affection" invaded and conquered his mind as a military Squad_ 'Oh Holy Ancestors of my Father!' _he stopped _'That wasn't swearing or cursing against my antecedents, righ-'_

"Awwwwww, Renji!" Rukia's voice immediately shook him off his thoughts, inducing him to toss a glance at the two of them – and immediately making him regret the choice: Rukia was against a wall, Renji leaning all over her body.

Byakuya's jaw dropped in astonishment.

'_Oh…Christ…'  
_

* * *

**_To be continued..._**

Poll number one: What do you think it's gonna happen next? Clue: (evil laughter)

Chapter six will be published in two parts (March and April) - uber-long chapter!

R&R See you next month!


	6. Day four Act Two 1

**Here I am again!**

I know, I've been a bad, bad girl and haven't updated since February - I'm sorry, but I'm experiencing a particularly depressing period and I don't feel like writing at all. So yeah...bear with me and support me, please? This is half of chapter six - the final part will be updated in May, hopefully. In June there won't be any update, probably. I'm sorry to say this, but I will have a damn lot of exams...(sighs)

_**Info about the story:**_

_writing status: _almost done with damn chapter 11. Geez, I didn't expect it to come out THIS LONG! Hopefully next month it will be done. Bear with me again, I have some other stories to carry on as well.

_reviews received:_ 35 - which means 7 reviews for each chapter. That's quite a good average, thank you! (hugs)

_hits: _about 4350

**Dedications: **to everyone, everyone! But, in particular to **Renna** (keluswulf) , who followed me from Y! Gallery!, **Ortisiana Malfoy**, because she read a few stories I wrote and she was so sweet! and **Nalakaori-chan** - I'm glad my chapter made your day! Writing would have no meaning without all of you supporting me! (love and cookies to everyone!)

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX (part one) : DAY FOUR – ACT TWO**

_Three days after._

_D-day – second act._

"_Didn't you see he is head over heels with you? Oh God, that must be blindness…"_

Rangiku's words kept on spinning in Rukia's head for a good half an hour, occasionally joined by the words "I-am-a-great-idiot" and "Maybe-it's-just-a-huge-misunderstanding".

She sighed, shifting in her chair as the situation became fairly uncomfortable and unbearable.

So much she couldn't even rejoice and enjoy the fresh and hot gossips regarding Soul Society, such as Yachiru's first crush who was to be none other than Hitsugaya Toushiro – crush that caused a sort of small turmoil between the 10th and the 11th Divisions (which happened to share the same building and, lately, also a couple of broken walls used as "inter-division passages") due to the fact that the small girl started stalking the white-haired Shinigami practically everywhere.

Trustworthy sources – the usual friend of a friend of an aunt of a cousin – assured the diplomatic debacle burst out the moment Yachiru popped out from behind the sink in Hitsugaya-taichou's personal bathroom.

Honestly, if she hadn't had to forcefully hold Kiyone still and prevent her from crashing and re-mixing Ise-fukutaichou's bones because she dared to give audible form to some – quite realistic, truth to be told – rumours involving Kotetsu Isane, Kurotsuchi Nemu and a heated making out session in the 12th Squad Archives, she would have left that conversation a whole while before.

Anyway – luckily – the occasion to "pack-and-move-out" came quite soon, disguised as a too-damn-polite-and-gentle-not-to-think-about-hidden-purposes Renji who invited her to have a drink together and chit-chat about "the situation on Earth" and "her impressions about being back in Soul Society".

Rukia was just waiting for him to go like "Look! The weather is wonderful, today!" and she would be mathematically sure about him making up a bunch of excuses just to hook her up for a she-didn't-want-to-know-where-it-was-supposed-to-lead-them talk.

"Sake, vodka, rum, beer…?" Renji politely asked her, showing her the huge assortment of coloured bottles placed on a long table against the left wall.

"Alcohol?" Rukia asked, raising a brow and innocently but suspiciously staring at the labels saying "Fruit Juice" or "Cola" or names of other "less-compromising" drinks.

The boy should have read her mind, because he chuckled and rubbed the back of his head "Oh, yeah…I switched the labels…" another nervous laughter "In the end, wasn't I the one instructed to corrupt our registers and documents at the Academy?"

Rukia literally sweat-dropped "Yeah, sure…" she sighed

'_If Ukitake-taichou finds it out, Renji is DEAD…'_

"But don't we have other…._really_ not-alcoholic drinks, in here?"

The sort of glance he shot back at her was clearly saying "Are-you-sick-or-what-to-refuse-alcohol?" but he somehow managed to smother his astonishment with a polite and never-so-fake smile.

"Sure, they're on the opposite counter" he uttered, pointing with his thumb at some unspecified spot behind his shoulders.

Rukia turned towards said counter, tossed a worried/bored/scared glance at the crowd between her and her goal and decided she truly, truly didn't want to go through it.

"A vodka will do more than fine. Peach, please" she sighed and watched at Renji's gleeful face while he poured her the drink.

"Here." He finally said, handing her the small glass.

She lingered for a moment about the transparent, peach-smelling drink

"So…? Is there something in particular you wished to tell me, Renji?" she gulped the first sip and panicked a bit in feeling the far-too-familiar sensation of heat and pleasure shooting through her veins. In the end, if Ichigo always coaxed her to drink before…well, "before", there should have been a reason, right?

She sighed and shook off that statement with a second, bigger mouthful.

"Oh well…Sure…." He took a deep breath and pondered.

Being the round-round-talker he was, Rukia was sure that, if the problem was in the mouth of the river, he would have started his flawless round-round-speech from the spring. "D-do you like this party?" most awkward smile ever.

The girl glanced at the room again, spotting – in chronological order – Matsumoto-fukutaichou trying to convince Ise-fukutaichou her … bosom was absolutely natural by squeezing said part of her body and randomly inviting girls and boys around her to do the same, five or six guys behind her fainting for a suspicious loss of blood, several random Shinigami gambling and betting on how many minutes Mandarame Ikkaku could carry around a full bottle on his bare skull without spilling the content and make it fall and, last but not least, Yumichika asking half of the present women for a pocket-mirror. Rukia really couldn't help but taking another sip of alcohol.

"Oh, yeah, this is…." _'A complete failure!' _"…a wonderful gathering. Thank you"

Renji beamed and almost blushed for a moment "Glad ya like it. Things were a bit rushed, so….Yeah, I'm glad. Very glad"

'_Renji, I already got that far, you know…'_ "Thank you again. Great…" _'Waste of time?_' "Great job."

The red-head smiled again, reaching for a bottle of red liquid – innocently classified as "Raspberry juice" (and probably some Cherry-liqueur) – and poured in his glass a good three inches.

"Yeah, great then…" he brought the small beaker to his mouth and…

And as soon as he started drinking, one of his ex-buddies from the 11th popped from behind with a loud "YO, RENJI! HOW YA DOIN'?" followed by a hard pat on his back – which made him almost choke.

The effect was worth a movie – and pretty much comparable to some hydraulic pump.

The liquid simply shot out of Renji's mouth, spraying in the air and, obviously, on Rukia's light-blue kimono, dotting it with red, chickenpox-alike marks.

The lady simply closed her eyes and started to count from one to ten.

When, reaching number nine, she found out she was even more pissed off than in the beginning, she started again.

Backwards.

From 11.368 – which happened to be the number of kicks she felt like giving Renji in that precise moment.

Abarai-fukutaichou, on the other hand, as soon as he recovered from his nearly-lethal-choking, found himself in the condition to choose between launching himself to "rescue his true love" or turning around to prosaically kick that man's ass to the moon and back a couple of times.

"Ah, shit! Rukia!" he opted for the first one, reserving for the vile violator just a low, angry glare – and immediately moving to try and help his beloved with a napkin.

"It's alright, it's alright!" she tried to form a smile on her lips, but she was positive she ended up gritting her teeth like a rabies-infected dog. Surely, her mind _screaming_ something like _'Go away Abarai, or I'll rip you to shreds!' _wasn't _so_ helpful.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I…I didn't expect that idiot to-"

"It's alright!" she cut him off firmly and half-glared at him, furiously rubbing on the silken-fabric of her cloth.

Waves of rage and murderous instincts were emanating from her as an evil and bitchy part of her unconscious was reminding her that was her_ new_, _beloved_, _expensive_ kimono.

Renji sighed "Let me at least show you to the bathroom" he said in a beaten-up-little-doggie tone.

She would have keenly replied with a "Let me at least show you how female you can become when I'm done with kicking your groin!" but she was in no position to refuse some cold water and soap to try and clean her precious, precious dress.

So, she simply nodded and started to follow him out of the room.

Show her to the bathroom, huh?

Tricky.

Indeed _so_ tricky, since outside it was as dark as a cow's ass-ho- . Renji censored himself and scolded his backstreet-rat habitudes, because referring to an animal's orifices wasn't _so_ appropriate in such a situation.

"Don't worry, Rukia, the bathroom….must be around here, I'm sure" anyway, the fact he bumped against a closed door in that precise moment didn't support his attempt in reassuring her.

After about ten minutes of blind-groping, they decided it was time to surrender.

However, luckily enough, they found a small fountain placed in a long, apparently endless corridor.

"Give me the napkin we can at least wet it and wash off some stains".

Once again the girl suppressed her will to give him a couple of punches and wash off his face and simply obeyed, leaning against a nearby wall.

Renji carefully immerged the small kerchief in the cold water and turned back to Rukia.

"Give it back, Renji. I can do it on my own"

'_Touch me and I'll chomp your hands off'_

"I did the mess, so I have to repair" he started to rub the napkin against her abdomen, trying to clean up her kimono.

As soon as he did so, the girl suddenly started to giggle out of control, squirming a bit under his touch.

Renji's muscles tensed as he looked up at her.

"Renji, please! That tickles!" she simply uttered in between muffled chuckles.

His hormones dropped and he relaxed a bit, hanging his head down and gulping.

"Oh….I….I didn't want to, sorry….I'll…try to be more delicate…Rukia…"

The girl started to giggle again, gripping his arms not to die of laughter and unconsciously pulling him closer to her.

Not to fall on her body with his whole weight he placed one of his palms flat against the wall.

"Oh, yes" she uttered "….just…..just don't brush so much….it's….ticklish!"

Abarai-fukutaichou smiled again, trying to at least enjoy a bit the situation he dragged himself in

"Alright, alright…Ya know? It would be easier if I could undress ya, but…"

The sudden blush on Rukia's face was priceless – but able to install in his mind a small, wriggling doubt.

'_Does she already know I…? Or maybe she…reciprocates my feelings as well…'_

"But it's already enough embarrassing as it is, now, Renji!" she affirmed curtly, literally murdering any hint of hope in Renji.

He sighed deeply and resumed his rubbing

"Yeah, yeah, sorry…I didn't intend to….err….suggest things, ya see…" he shifted a bit, drawing backwards to have a better look at the conditions of her kimono and … ad if what he did before wasn't enough yet, he stepped on her foot.

Anyway, if in his dreams he had often pictured Rukia screaming under his touch, the sound that escaped from her lips wasn't exactly the kind of noise he wished to hear.

"Awwwwww, Renji!"

The boy immediately neared again, removing his whole, 78-kg-worth weight from her little foot.

He was about to mumble some words of apology, but as soon as he opened his mouth, his glance side-spotted a pale, black-haired, kenseikaan-adorned figure staring at them from behind a corner.

Before his subconscious would prevail and make him scream in horror "A ghost, a ghost!", his rational mind suggested him to particularly focus on the kensekaan and, then, to immediately draw backwards from Rukia, who happened to be the sister of the "ghost".

Ghost who happened to be his Taichou.

'_Holy crap, I'm so dead!'_

But, so differently from his usual, aloof and murderous self, Kuchiki-taichou simply kept on staring at them as if he had just witnessed his Fukutaichou having sex with his sist-

Ok, that wasn't exactly a happy comparison.

So, in that precise moment, the greatest temptation for Renji was to launch himself in a pathetic-but-surely-evergreen

"This is not what is seems" and beg for his Taichou's forgiveness.

Better if falling on his knees and kiss his fee-

'_Stop it, Renji! Deal with it like a man!'_

"Kuchiki-Taichou…."

He started, clearing his throat.

'_Must not say this…Must not say this…'_

"This is not wha-"

"I stained my dress, Nii-sama. And Renji was helping me to get it clean"

Luckily for him, Rukia spoke and prevented him from prostrating himself in front of that man.

Byakuya, on the other hand, was still staring at them as a five-years-old-boy would look at a TV-program about the procreation of rabbits.

'_Hellooooo? Kuchiki Byakuya?'_ his ego called him back to a sort of reality _'They weren't "doing-things" in the hallway, so you can at least lift up your jaw and close your mouth…'_

True.

Kuchiki-Taichou shook his head for a moment, then cleared his throat as usual and pronounced a stern "I see" trying as hardly as he could not to make his voice sound as strangled as it was – but ending up talking with a I-ate-a-candy-as-big-as-my-fist-and-I-don't-know-how-to-swallow-it tone.

After this, the logic would have suggested a deep, deep silence to awkwardly fill the space, but, instead, a rather _loud_, thudding noise came from the meeting-room, followed by a pretty illuminating sentence declaring "YA-YYYYYYYY! GO, GO! HORSIE, HORSIE! GALLOP! GALLOP!" in a clearly over-alcohol-flooded tone.

A series of odd looks flew from Renji to Rukia, Rukia to Renji and finally to Kuchiki-Taichou as well.

Then, they rushed back to the room, finding the apocalyptic scenario of an over-smashed Zaraki-taichou and an unfortunately-normal Kyoraku-taichou, respectively serving as "horses" for a far-too-shy Kotetsu Isane and an over-excited-Matsumoto-fukutaichou who was responsible for the screams they heard in the hallway.

Worse thing was, they seemed to have a competition – and Madarame Ikkaku was already betting his whole pay on his Taichou. AND, as if it wasn't enough yet to freak a person out, half of the mentioned guys had evidently popped out of nowhere and joined the gathering.

Far, far in the most remote and metaphorically dark corner of the room Ise-fukutaichou and Hitsugaya-taichou were exchanging looks of disapproval and reciprocated pity.

"YO! RUKIA!" Rankigu suddenly beamed "Why dontcha ri-ri-ride Abarai and join us as well?"

And if the girl took this statement rather easy, dropping the offer with a dry "No, thanks, I'm fond of my pride", Renji and Byakuya – even if for different reasons – looked as if they had just spotted Aizen disguised among the guests, dancing the samba and swinging his hips along with Ichimaru Gin, inducing the last-mentioned to leave again the room to take a deep breath and recover from the hundredth shock of the evening.

'_R-R-R-Rukia….ri-ri-ri-ri-riding me…'_

Renji's mind started to stutter and falter at the idea of Rukia straddling him.

Too bad he wasn't thinking about horses at all

'_Oh Gawd! I'm gonna nose-bleed. I'm SO gonna nose-bleed!'_

But he couldn't faint from a major nosebleed in front of his beloved Rukia now, could he?

So he simply started to do the only thing which would have surely prevented him from fainting right on the spot.

Drinking.

And obviously, with "drinking" he didn't intend fresh, fizzy water.

Not at all.

So, when half-an hour, at least five kilometres up and down the same corridor, and 25 good reasons to commit a murder suppressed later, Kuchiki Byakuya came back into the room with an expression of triumphal glory, Renji was as drunk as a drunk monkey and was already singing along with his "buddies" in the worst tradition of every low-filthy-hoods-inn.

'_Renji…can't…definitely…hold a drink…'_ was Byakuya's first reaction as, wide-eyed, he spotted his fukutaichou hugging an ever-so-inebriated (at least for his memories) Yumichika.

"_**As I went into the Chandelier Shop, some candles for to buy**_"

the red-head started in a high, wobbling tone, almost _leering_ at his companion.

"_**I went inside the Chandelier Shop, but no one I could spy**_" the other one replied, grinning back and narcissistically adjusting his collar – despite his irrefutable drunkenness.

Plausibly out of nowhere, a third voice – later recognizable as a very, very, very out-of-her-mind Kotetsu Kiyone, joined the shameful chorus _**"Now I was desappointed so some angry words I said"**_ Then, the three of them together _**"When I heard a sound of"**_ three awful claps of their hands _**"right above me head"**_

And, as if they weren't tone-deaf and ungracious enough, they repeated the whole verse twice.

The horrible, horrible concert, unfortunately, went on.

This time, as if switching roles could improve that sick-cow-like singing, it was Kiyone's turn to start _**"Now I was quick and I was slick, so up the stairs I fled"**_ Then, Renji again _**"And very surprised I was to find the Chandelier's wife in bed" **_

God, it was like witnessing to someone's social suicide knowing you can't do anything to save him.

Apart from the fact that, probably, he was the only one to find the show the slightest bit…_disgusting_ – as he gathered from the smug and amused faces of the other "guests".

Last but not least in this gallery of horrors, it was again Yumichika's turn _**"And with her was another man of quiet considerable size" **_

Byakuya's eyes narrowed for a moment. "considerable size"?

What was the point in celebrating with a song the physical sturdiness of a man?

But a little, sneaky voice in the back of his head suggested that said line wasn't about the vigour of a man.

Or at least, about he vigour of the _whole_ man.

A sudden blush crawled on his cheeks and he mentally thanked the fact everyone was too intensively focussed on the singers to notice his embarrassment.

Singers that, anyway, had started with another, scandalous (by meaning and by slurred accent) three-voices chorus as if to confirm what he previously thought _**"And they were having a" **_three clapping-sounds _**"just before me eyes".**_

All, obviously, repeated twice.

'_Where did they had the enlightening opportunity to learn this…highly cultural song?'_

Honestly, even if he would never, ever admit it, his curiosity was somewhat raising, inducing a small part of his mind to wonder what was going to happen to that highly pious woman and the sturdy, valuable man.

But, unfortunately, the three of them seemed to decide for a sudden stop when they noticed his presence in the room, Renji particularly red on his cheeks – was it the alcohol, the embarrassment or…?

Now, definitely NOT love – and Yumichika trying to act as nothing ever happened.

"K-Kuchiki-taaaichou" the red-head started in a wobbling tone "W-wee…aaaarreeee….tru-truly sorry, 'ca-"

"PRISSY-TAICHOU, PLEASE JOIN US AND SING!" Kiyone's voice came again in high pitches, a small cup of sake in her right hand as her whole body was oscillating like a leaf in the windy April.

'_P-Prissy-taichou?'_

Byakuya's mind registered.

"SHUT THE FUCKING DRAIN UP, KIYONE!" Madarame Ikkaku's voice suddenly appeared again.

Incredibly, he was still rather…sober? Kuchiki Byakuya didn't dare to say too much on that matter, since he had been taught that appearances can often deceive you.

"RENJI FREAKING TOLD US NOT TO SAY OUT LOUD HE CALLS BYAKUYA "PRISSY-TAICHOU"!"

Kuchiki-taichou's mind stopped again and partially blacked-out, too many worrying signals to identify and analyse in a sole time.

He had been called by just his first name_ and_ by the not-specifically-insulting-but-still-not-quite-polite appellative of "Prissy-taichou" in the same sentence.

Besides, the "proud inventor" of the last epithet happened to be Abarai Renji, his fukutaichou _and _man he was wishing to start a sort of relationship with.

'_Oh God…'_he mused _' That's not possible. Renji clearly committed an act of insubordination towards you, his superior! It's unbelievable and unforgivable!'_

Mainly because it was drastically cutting off his possibilities to manage and bed him, even if he preferred to avoid this sore topic even in his self-to-self conversations.

'_And, most of all, I'm not even "prissy". I'm not so easily impressed by roughness and-Oh Holy God, what are they doing__? Directly drinking from the bottle, without a glass!'_

_o-O-o_

While Kuchiki-Taichou was fighting against his ego to determine how prissy he eventually was, Renji (who was drunk, but evidently not SO drunk not to notice Ikkaku had just managed to screw him up) was once again heading out of the room, principally to "murder his own murderous intents" towards his buddy.

In the end, if Madarame-baldy had been able to survive that time he told Zaraki-taichou it had been Renji's fault for that "little" incident of the_ whole_ 11th Division suddenly deciding to take a day off to visit a brothel, he could let him live on even now that he ruined his reputation with his other Taichou, right?

No, wrong.

But exactly because it was wrong, he needed to get out of there as soon as possible not to make hair grow again on that barren skull – not that Ikkaku would have minded, probably, but that was not the point.

Anyway, outside it was again as dark as the depths of Hell, and since his mind was now pretty hazed, thinking about a journey to, example given, the bathroom, was not something_ that_ easy.

'_I wobble but I don't stumble. I wobble, but I don't stumble, remember Renji, you wobble but don't stu-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!'_

And, in fact, he didn't stumble.

He literally tripped over a small step, astoundingly managing not to print himself on the ground by grasping something solid he later identified as a sort of railing.

'_See? You didn't stumble in the end'_ But, since challenging the fate was not so smart, he decided to take a break from his little walk to rest a bit his back against a wall _'Uhhhm…I smell rat, here…How the Hell come it's all wavy-waving?'_

Maybe, the alcoholic-rate in his blood could somewhat be a clue.

_o-O-o_

'_Maybe he is right.'_

Kuchiki Byakuya kept on telling himself, slowly sipping the only cup of sake he had allowed for himself that night

'_Maybe you're just a prissy, aristocratic reactionary too fond of his own traditions. Maybe your fukutaichou is right and you should just give up with your unwise and irrational idea of a relationship between you two'_ he took the last, deeper mouthful of alcohol and decided to indulge in

A second glass of liqueur.

'_Or maybe it was just some goliardic suggestion to spend a pleasant evening with his friends and he doesn't mean it for real. Or probably he does, but…' _

Another sip

'_But you were so blind not to notice and now you're sitting here sore and regretting'_

Longer taste of alcohol

'_Mmmhhh…Sake is always good, though. And it would anyway be nice to have __**him**__ a bit __**sore**__, somewhe- Oh God! You did it again! Stop thinking about having a sexual relationship with him, Kuchiki Byakuya! It's useless, you have no hope!'_

Was it really true?

Did he really have no hope in something?

He, the mighty Heir of the Kuchiki Clan, proud wearer of his Kenseikaans and actual owner of the sacred Ginpakukazaharu no Usigime (A/N: his scarf. No, this time I didn't make it up. It's the real name of his scarf…) which symbolized the power and the prestige of his old, noble family.

Could it really be that he was _doomed_ to fail in that matter?

No, that wasn't possible.

Not in that moment.

Not for him and not there, after he promised himself he would at least manage to declare to Renji, during the party.

Yes, in the end it was true.

He couldn't really, really keep himself from making troublesome deals with himself.

'_Alright, Kuchiki Byakuya. You can't be unsuccessful. It's not your destiny. Now raise your gracious self from this comfortable chair and go accomplish what you're here for!' _

Was it the alcohol to have some sort of effect on him as well?

Who knows?

Anyway, in the blink of an eye, Kuchiki-taichou placed his second – empty – glass on the table and headed out again, looking for Renji.

* * *

**_To be continued..._**

As usual: What do you think it's gonna happen next? Clue: . . .fangirls will probably like the second part of this chapter.

Please reviews, I need your feedback more than ever recently! 


	7. Day Four Act Two 2

**Welcome to the unexpected monthly update of June!**

Here we go! I know, I should have update in May and not in June, but a terribly happy thing happened. Despite: university exams (all good, all good…I took 30 out of 30 in every one of them!), major pc failure (had to format 3 times in two days, reinstall EVERYTHING and so on…T.T And still it's not fixed…)…I MANAGED TO FINISH CHAPTER ELEVEN! That's wonderful. I started writing chapter 12 as well and it looks like it's coming along quite well. I noticed, though, that as the story goes on, the style slightly changes. Hope you won't mind.

_**Info about the story:**_

_writing status: _done with chapter 11. Started chapter 12.

_reviews received:_ 44! I surpassed the average of 7 reviews for each chapter! Thank you!! And…wow! First serious flame, received on my B-Day XD Cool, indeed. And I've got 11 favs, 33 alerts and 2 C2 Communities!

_hits: _about 5800

**Dedications: **to **KazuyaArshashi008** – because her review made me laugh so much I could barely breath. Please, spare innocent pieces of wood! (chuckles), **shinigami-girl-666** – because I'll have to send some present to her family. I made them think their girl's gone insane, because she randomly laughs XD and…to **Lilya**. Well, you'll see a Kenshin appearing in this chapter. This is a sort of quote from her "Sins of the fathers" story. The genre's different and here Kenshin's not Byakuya's son, but she asked for it…and who am I to refuse? Much lovie love to anyone!!

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX (part two) ****: DAY FOUR – ACT TWO**

_Three days after._

_D-day – second act._

'_It's fuuuuuuunny, though. I mean…It must be some sort of trick of the 13__th__ Division to have such nice, quivering walls. They're truly…wavy, man! I mean…Geeeez! I wouldn't be surprised at all, right now, to spot some fish swimming on it…'_

Renji frowned and cocked his head to the side, staring at the wall in front of him as if it was a precious, fine piece of art.

'_I'll have Ukitake-taichou telling me the secret for this…__or maybe I should investigate myself…' _

He somewhat decided his last option to be the smartest one and, so, he moved forwards a bit with the intention of reaching said wall and touch his "wavy-wavyness".

But, as soon as he parted his back from its solid support and wobbled a bit forward, something immediately wrapped around his arm, drawing him backwards and in place again

'_Impressive…' _he thought, spellbound_ 'This other wall must be sticky…and with hands…Coooool!'_

"Renji…" a dull, female voice reached his ears, sighing "How are you feeling?"

Rhetorical question.

He was – of course – feeling great, right?

"Grrrrrrrreat…" he slurred and glanced at something light-blue-ish sparkling for a second in front of him "Miss Fairy. I didn't lose any tooth, tonight, I'm sorry…"

The figure sighed again

"I'm not a Fairy. Actually so far from being one"

she glanced up at his cheeks, noticing a slight alcohol-caused blush which – strangely – wasn't surprising her at all

"I'm Rukia, do you remember me?"

Honestly, she truly, truly hoped he didn't.

She had had a point in saying she was SO far from being a fairy.

Unless fairies are allowed to commit murders and spill pools of blood in their division, that is.

'_Why, why, why did he have to get drunk like this? Why?'_ she metaphorically banged her head against the wall a couple of times _'Yeah, but you could have ignored his absence and enjoy the rest of the par-Ok, no. Seeing that sort of newly-created brothel wasn't considered "enjoying" at all' _

In fact, after Renji's disappearance, a rush of love worth of the worse tradition of the Eighth division suddenly filled the air, inducing various, unsuspected people to join, rejoice and kiss, in a sweet – too sweet, freakingly honey-like – manner.

Example given? Since when Hisagi Shuuei and Ise Nanao were…kissing? And the bad thing was, she wasn't even drunk.

"R-Rukia?" Renji dramatically paused, as if that name _should_ have reminded him of _ something_, but he wasn't quite aware of exactly_ what_. "Of course I remember you!"

The girl sighed, her last hope of anonymity melting into that beaming, slurred tone like ice in a sunny day.

"Great, you do?" she arched a brow, sarcastically, trying to ignore the stinky waves coming from his mouth – which were probably able to kill plants and dry flowers right on the spot.

'_Don't…flinch…don't…GAAAAAAH! IT STINKS! STIIIIINKS!'_ she turned her head to she side and exhaled a deep breath.

The red-head seemed not to have received her question, for he was staring ahead, his gaze fixed – too fixed – on the opposite wall.

'

_I so want to know what he's seeing there, right now…'_

Rangiku's words resounded in her head

'_Ok. I'm not SO keen, in the end…'_

An evil side-voice suggested her something involving a great lack of clothing, flushed faces, huffed breaths, Renji himself and a certain Kuchiki Rukia she was supposed to know .

'_Definitely not'_ she snorted.

"I dooooooooooooooo" Renji half-barked/half-howled, grinning and then laughing to himself.

Dumbly.

'_Zabimaru would be SO proud of him…'_

Rukia mused, mentally smacking her own forehead, partially for his voice and partially for her even dumber remark.

'_Why am I still here? Why?__ Or better…Why did I come here in first place?' _

A mental image of Matsumoto-fukutacihou placing Hitsugaya-taichou on her lap and kissing – French-kissing – him flashed in her head.

She felt like crying

'_C'mon Rukia…He is your friend__, in the end…you've known him since you both were kids…AND YOU CAN'T LOOK AT LOVEMAKING WHEN ICHIGO IS NOWHERE NEAR HERE!' _

Siiigh.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it…" she made a few steps forwards, absentmindedly looking at his sash, which happened to be just in front of her eyes.

She sighed again.

'_It's always good to be reminded I'm as tall as another person's legs. Great…' _

Renji's hands, obviously, came from above, patting and stroking her hair.

She glanced upwards, intercepting his drunken smile – and frowning

'_Don't bite…Bites…are…bad...even if…He's cuddling you as if you were a dog…' _she hissed _'…a bad, bad dog…' _

They slid along her cheek and under her chin, lifting her face a bit and caressing under her jaw

'_Woof! Woof! Wriggle your tail now, Rukia! Woof!' _she literally sweat-dropped at her own stupidity.

"And you know _why_ I doooooooo?" he went on, his voice deeper and…almost more sober than before.

One of her usual, bad, bad sensations filled her mind.

"No, why?" she tried to drop the sentence as casually as she could, trying to ignore that doggie-like cuddling that, in the end, wasn't so annoying, but quite sooth-

'_Gaaah, Rukia! Stop it, stop it, stop it!'_

The boy drunkenly giggled and leant forward, wobbling the slightest bit – but still not enough to make Rukia worry about being pinned against the floor with his whole weight on her tiny, frail body.

'_Not that he would mind, anyw- Ok, let's cut if off…for your mental sake…'_

She closed her lids for a moment and gasped when, in the inverse process, she found Renji's face just a few inches away from hers, the tip of his tongue tracing his lower lip and a wicked, unreadable glint in his eyes.

'_Move…Away, Rukia…RUN!' _but her body was somewhat stuck there, lured into that by his fingers drawing circles on her skin.

'_Ichigo IS right…I am a cuddle freak!'_ she mentally wailed.

"Because…" he started, moving closer still which, matter-of-factly, meant nose-to-nose "…I love you…" he concluded, eyes closed and lips slightly parted, as if trying to hint something Rukia didn't really, really want to understand.

'_Oh…He said it…he said "I love you"…he…GAAAH! RUN, RUKIA! AWAY! GAAAAH!'_ her mind screamed in terror and horror, her eyes as wide as two trash-bins.

A shudder shook her body.

She wasn't sure if it was because she hated to admit Matsumoto Rangiku was right or because Renji was really in love with her and he was actually trying to kiss her in a dark corridor – with a terrible, terrible alcohol-stinking breath.

Probably the second one.

Maybe.

'_I mean, Rangiku is a freak! She can't be rig-GAAAAH! RENJI IS TRYING TO KISS YOU!'_

In that precise instant, Rukia discovered her brother's Shunpo ( A/N the technique that allows him to move so fast) wasn't so hard to achieve.

Not in certain situations.

Not when her mental sake was threatened.

'_Maybe the "humping festival" in the meeting room wasn't SO bad, after all…'_

She vanquished in a moment, without even daring to say "Bye".

And obviously, leaving Renji's lips kissing nothing but thin air.

_o-O-o_

'_Alright…A wall on the left…'_

He swung SenbonZakura again, this time to the right

'_Empty.'_

He turned right, his Soul Cutter still firmly held in front of him.

Kuchiki Byakuya was aware of it, his action was highly, truly unbecoming.

But, after a quick but accurate analysis of the situation, he opted for taking that crucial decision, considering a bad, clumsy fall with probable landing on his aristocratic bottom in a dark – but potentially public – place, even more clumsy than swinging around his sword as a furious Amazon, just to sense where walls and/or doors were and avoid face-contact with them.

It was already about fifteen minutes since he had left the meeting-room, wandering around gloomy hallways and turning left-right-right-left-right as if he was unwillingly taking part to a hide-and-seek competition.

And, if he had to stick to that sort of metaphor, his hunted-prey, Renji, was nowhere to be found.

Probably, the fact every corridor looked exactly like the previous one and, most assuredly, like the following one as well, wasn't much of a help.

It was humiliating and, perhaps, even a bad omen of fate.

He was doomed not to find Renji.

Not even now that his self-esteem and confidence were at their highest peak.

'_It's my destiny…__I won't find him anywhere…Maybe he already declared to Rukia, convincing her to accept such a relationship…It's doo-'_

"Listen, I…I have to tell you something very important" a low, male voice resounded in the corridor, inducing Kuchiki-taichou to pause and listen more carefully.

'_Maybe…Could it be…Renji?'_

A high, female tone seemed to reply to that first sentence, but it was evidently still too far to distinguish the precise words.

"Yeah, right…I…I just wanted to tell you…that I've been in love with you for so long, my angel and…I can't bear it anymore. I…Needed to tell you this and…"

The girl seemed to giggle.

Byakuya-sama gasped in terror.

'_It…it doesn't sound like Renji, but those voices are too distant to recognize them clearly. Without mentioning the fact alcohol usually alters tones…' _he mused, unconsciously moving forwards and towards the place those words seemed to come from.

A male chuckle followed the previous laughter "Of course, honey, but…I just…love you so much…need you so much…want you so much and…Please let's make love. Here. Now!"

When a low thud and other laughs followed that statement, Kuchiki Byakuya found himself practically rushing down the corridor and behind the next corner, the worm of doubt and insecurity wriggling in his brain.

'_It can't be. It simply can't be Renji. This would be impossible. He is a fukutaichou, he would never bring shame to himself and Rukia proposing her to do such a reprehensible thing in a public place, right?'_

When a little voice in the back of his head replied "wrong", Kuchiki-taichou discovered the gap between "rushing" and "taking advantage of his Shunpo-tecnique" was really, really tiny.

'_Please, calm down and come back to reali-'_

The boy sighed and gasped in air "Mmmhhhh…..Kiyo-chan…yes, like that…"

Byakuya arched his brow, his mind trying to register and correctly process what he had just heard

'_Kiyo-chan?'_

The following moment, he found himself madly blushing as, turning behind the hundredth corner, he spotted a black-haired boy literally trapping a young girl against a wall, shameful noises reverberating in the dark atmosphere.

As Kuchuki-taichou would have greatly preferred to ignore, the guy was wearing a sort of Identity Document literally printed on the back of his shirt - his haori had already been pushed down his sides – saying "Kenshin, rookie of the 5th Division. Soul Society's last romantic".

Obviously, the "o" in "romantic" was heart-shaped.

From what he had happened to catch of the girl's figure, she was rather tall and rather unclothed, locks of dark-blond hair tangled on her forehead.

'_It looks somewhat familiar to m-'_

"Yes! Please, do it again! Kiyone!"

Kuchiki Byakuya's jaw literally dropped on the ground as his mind suggested him that "Kiyone" couldn't be other than Kotestu Kiyone, Third Seat of the 13th Division and co-responsible – together with Renji and Yumichika – of the shameful sing-show he had to witness earlier.

With a quick motion and a fierce blush on his face, he turned back, resuming his research.

His unlucky research, truth to be told.

If he had been another kind of man, he would have probably already taken up for inspiration an ample repertory of curses, but, being a nobleman, he didn't even have that labile form of consolation.

And no, saying "Where the place-of-perdition-and-damnation-where-the-erratic-and-evil-souls-are-doomed-to-be-buried-for-the-rest-of-eternity is Renji?" wasn't much satisfying in that sense.

Kuchiki-taichou grabbed again his sword and moved it up in the air, trying to anticipate the presence of solid surfaces, ears so tended in the attempt to catch some useful noise that they resembled the ones of an elf. An elf wandering along the depths of the 13th division and looking for his beloved – male – fukutaichou. Epical, indeed.

"Uuhh…..Wha? Rukia? Where did you goooooo?" a wobbling, drunken voice came from behind his shoulders, making him stop again in his tracks. Byakuya couldn't help but smirking

'_Maybe I__ found my goal'_

"Ruuuuuuuukia?"

Hhe voice – a male one – kept on asking, after a few moments.

"Why did you go awaaaaaaaay?!"

His tone was now so high the windows – although he couldn't see them – quivered and begged for mercy.

"My breath ain't stinking that muuuuuuch, if that's the trouble!"

As he turned around and went on, nearing the place were that man – Renji, probably – was trying to convince an evidently non-existent interlocutor of the good conditions of his breath, waves of different alcoholic drinks mixed with extra-strong-mint-toothpaste and something else he wasn't exactly keen to recognize, came to strike his poor, noble nostrils – and made him shudder from hair to sandals, sword included. Kuchiki Byakuya stopped, eyes narrowing and nose flinching.

The impression was that of a huge quantity of various hard-beverages being repeatedly smashed in a mint-field while a hideous, unnecessary breeze was blowing directly towards him.

He closed his eyelids and started breathing deeply – realizing after two seconds it wasn't exactly a good idea.

Anyway, eyes still shut, he moved a bit forwards, until he discovered something humid and extremely reeking was breathing against his face, making his lids shoot open and wide – and his lungs gasp for air as, once this brief process was completed, he noticed he was standing just in front of a – cutely – drunk Renji.

Grabbing his rampaging hormones with one hand and smothering his sense of smell with the other, Kuchiki-taichou just kept on staring at the man in front of him, his half-dumb/half-drooling expression luckily hidden by the obscurity of the place.

"Uuuuuuuuuh?"

As he seemed to spot the presence of another male being in front of his stinking breath, Renji's tattooed brows knitted in an expression that, if it wasn't for his flushed cheeks, would have been easily mistaken for a sign of deep, deep thought

"So you came back?" he finally spit out after a few moments, gaze partially beaming.

Byakuya imperceptibly tilted his head to the side

"Not really"

He tried to reply as sternly as the fact of having his beloved fukutaichou within reach for a kiss could allow him

"It's you who should have come back to the meeting-room, Renji. You were the one to organize this gathering"

"Maaaaaan!" the red-head frowned and pouted "It's you who disappeared in the middle of nothing! I was waiting for ya, ya knooooooooooow?!"

The older man's eyes widened in surprise.

Was it possible that he was actually talking about what it seemed he was talking about?

'_Nice repetition'_

Byakuya-sama scolded himself as if the use of a correct and by-the-book language was essential even when he was merely musing.

"You were? How so?" he tentatively ventured, taking advantage of the utter darkness which could hide an eventual blush on his face – in case he was right – and of Renji's drunkenness, which was assuring Byakuya he wouldn't remember a single word the morning after – in case he was wrong.

Renji flinched at the question

"You're SUCH a tease, huh?"

He scowled a bit

"You disappeared just when…Ya know, I was about to…"

He trailed off, a deeper shade of red colouring his already flushed cheeks as he fixed his gaze on the ground.

Kuchiki-taichou's heart was now pounding in his chest, his mind struggling within the possibility of him having hallucinations again and the vague, unreal hope of his fukutaichou somewhat returning his feelings.

"You were about to…?"

His hormones, on the other hand, were pretty much rampaging, provoking a strange feeling of heat in his lower body that made him swallow very hard and slightly humidify his lips in the remote possibility that odd conversation could turn out into….

'_Into nothing, Kuchiki Byakuya! Stop this! You perfectly know it's just wishful-thinking!' _

Renji seemed to blush even more as he just kept on staring at the floor, taking a couple of deep breaths and slightly biting on his lower lip.

As that picture hit his retina, was rightly turned upside down and received by his brain, sudden and rapid hormonal signs started to flash in Byakuya's mind.

As if mice were chewing on the tiny, tiny strings keeping together his usual rational and aloof self, his iciness started to slowly melt, creating cold, wet droplets trickling along his whole body.

Oh, no, wait!

That was because he was even cold-sweating._ '_

_Lean-over-and-kiss-hi—No, you can't! That would be truly umbec—wonderful!' _

His breath itched the slightest bit as he swallowed hard and struggled not to surrender to those low – but pressing – instincts.

But we all know common sense teaches it's not possible to always win battles – or, to put it a better way, we all know, sometimes, a nice, nice defeat can be better than a sad victory.

In the blink of an eye, Kuchiki-taichou leaned over and lifted the other man's chin, pressing his own lips against his.

Renji, oddly enough to make him wonder if that was considered a sort of rape, didn't complain at all, but, somewhat, managed to kiss back, his strong hands clamping around his taichou's slender arms.

When the heat that moment created became unbearable, they both found themselves panting for air.

But, as soon as their lips parted, the sense of loss induced them to long for contact again, their tongues meeting outside their mouths and then, when Renji dragged the other man closer, battling inside of those hot cavities.

Byakuya's brain had snapped and disconnected from anything even the slightest bit rational a few minutes before, leaving him in a dazed state of happiness and desire.

He was kissing the boy he was seeking, pressing him harder and harder against the wall as if this could quench his excess of energy before his hands, now on Renji's sides, could head lower and…

His eyes immediately shot open as he slightly pulled back.

'_Oh my God! Holy ancestors of my noble clan!' _

His mind completely panicked for a brief moment, the image of Renji flushed and panting in front of him, terrifying and enthralling him at the same time.

'_I kissed him! I…I…Oh my God, he's not even aware of it!' _

Then, the following moment, Renji's hands went to cup his cheek, tenderly, making his heart jumping in his throat and then back in his chest as those rough fingers started to brush his skin.

Maybe it hadn't been so wrong.

Maybe it was just a matter of self-acceptation of this feeling for him, too.

Maybe, once in his lifetime, his dreams were really coming true…

"Ehi…"

Hhe red-head softly said after a few seconds

"What's wrong? Do you regret this…."

Small, tearing pause

"…._Rukia_?"

As soon as that name rolled over Renji's lips, Kuchiki-taichou's orbs widened in a worrying manner, as if they were threatening to flip out of his orbs and smash against the wall.

'_R-Rukia…? Did…Did he say…Rukia?'_

As quickly as it had started, everything was over now.

He left that hallway in the blink of an eye with his fists clenched to his sides, his frustration and grief wrapped in his usual, re-found aloofness.

Maybe it hadn't been so wrong.

It had been worse.

* * *

_**To be continued…**_

Opinion poll: what do you think is gonna happen next?

Sorry for being so mean...but...oh, well. It was fuuuun! XD


	8. Day Five or Only the Braves Survive

HERE I UPDATE AGAIN!

I'm very sorry for the long hiatus, but I'm going through a bad period... :( Gomen, ne? I hope your reviews will make me feel better...THANKS TO YOU ALL!

_**Info about the story:**_

_writing status: _same as June, sorry- I'm experiencing a baaaaad period of depression.

_reviews received:_ 61! Fabulous! Which means the average of...almost 9 reviews for each chapter! GREAT, THANK YOU!!

_hits: _more than 8650!!

Dedications: to Hynatta-Rocks24, since her reviews was the last one I received and to Tyger Eye2, because I don't want her smile to turn upside down! Oh and Kazuya Arsashi 008 again, becase she makes me laugh so much!

A GREAT "THANK YOU" TO MORGOTHINE FOR EDITING MY BAD FRENCH!!!

OH, SPECIAL NOTES!!

FRENCH FOLKS OUT THERE...HELP ME!! I apologize to you and your wonderful language, but I had to use a few French sentences in here and I haven't spoken French in DECADES now...please, correct me if I'm mistaken! MUCH LOVE!

* * *

******CHAPTER SEVEN: ****DAY FIVE or ONLY THE BRAVES SURVIVE**

_Four days __later._

_The post-party._

The day after the hangover was terrible.

As every, single, fucking day after a hangover, truth to be told.

Renji banged his head against his desk once again and sighed deeply, moving his index finger to lift his jaw and close it against the rest of his face before drool would start to leak out and wet his paperwork .

'_Mmmmhhhh…Want…to…die…'_ he mused _'…fucking goddamned head, it's practically tearing itself in two…Mmmhhh…I want a bullet…'_

He slightly raised his head from that solid surface, his swollen, bags-supplied eyes wandering about his office as if it was the first time in his entire life he got to see it.

Life was cruel. Very, very cruel.

Even more cruel if he had to think about the fact his freaking headache was preventing him to jump around the room and scream in joy because he had finally managed to kiss Rukia.

He sighed.

There was definitely something wrong, in that kiss, he knew it.

The sensation had been that his beloved girl had suddenly grown taller but skinnier and somewhat…different – but, most likely, even his alcoholic rate and level of smashed-ness had grown, meanwhile.

Anyway, as if the fact of having multiple bombs exploding in his poor, poor head every five seconds wasn't enough, Kuchiki-taichou had chosen the worst day ever to be grumpy and "try the emotion of PMSing".

And so, when Renji had entered the office just one hour later than what he was supposed to do, his desk was already filled with_ towers_ of modules and other annoying papers to fill in and sign.

Well, anyone could object signing paperwork was his duty as a vice-captain, but it was hard not to smell "revenge-terrible-revenge" when, among the various papers, he discovered there were also the accounts of the last ten years to verify and classify and the checks to compile and send to the electrician, the plumber, the various cleaners and even the bricklayers that did the restorations and re-painted the whole division three years before – and that were now trying to obtain their rightful (still missing) money by making their lawyer send over to the Sixth at least four letters of complaint every day.

Letters that, now, were in the same, fucking pile of Renji's paperwork under the label of "Read-reply-send back".

To complete that wonderful picture, then, there was also the fact Kuchiki-Taichou was actually way-beyond-silent and, so, he was practically alone with no one to complain with, except for his headache.

He gathered all his strength and courage to grab a pen, opening a folder and starting to scribble something in it with _such_ precision the result looked like the electrocardiogram of a heart-attack.

'_Mmmhhhh…As long as I don't reject my own request for a pay rise, everything I approve and/or decline is fine…I … don't…fucking care…right now…'_

But, evidently, his head _did _care.

Quite a bit.

After the second, struggled and sweated decent sign he managed to write down on that he-didn't-know-and-didn't-care-about-what report, in fact, his neurones had suddenly started to dance rock-and-roll in his poor skull, pulsating and echoing like the subwoofer ( A/N: it should be the big speaker that you put on the ground and allows you to hear basses) of a HI-FI.

'_Me…is gonna…die…'_ his mind dramatically remarked and his body highlighted the thought by making him bang his head again.

"Mmmhhh…Why am I here?" he mused out loud immediately after – and obviously, intending it as a rhetorical question.

"Because it's your work and you are highly _over-paid_ for it"

The first sentence his Taichou addressed him that day came in a low, icy, stern tone.

What was new about that? Nothing.

"I could have taken a day off…" Renji mumbled angrily and shot a discreet gaze at the older man.

"No, you couldn't. It was your choice to come to work, this morning" Kuchiki-taichou simply replied, lightly dragging his own pen on his own papers and, evidently, being careful to make it rustle as much as he could, just to annoy the living Hell out of poor, headachy Renji.

"Was it…?" he ventured dully, placing his forehead on his desk again and snuggling a bit against it.

"Yes, it was. Yesterday night you vigorously refused treatment in the Fourth Division, so I might suggest now it's late to complain about the poor conditions of your health, Renji"

The red-haired raised his heavy, aching head again and tossed another glance at his Captain.

Vague and indefinite memories of the previous night were coming in blurry lumps to his mind.

Unohana-taichou and Kotetsu-fukutaichou appeared in the hazed fog of a couple of them, but he really didn't have a single clue about what he could have possibly done.

Ok, considering how much he did drink and his tendency to loosen up his tongue quite a bit when smashed, maybe he wasn't even sure he actually _wanted_to know it.

Anyway, probably, it was still better to deal with an eventual – almost sure – uncomfortable truth than being the joke and main amusement of the whole Soul Society for a week.

Not that his eventual knowledge of the facts would change that piece, but, at least, if he was laughed at, he had the right to know why, hadn't he?

"I did?" he dumbly asked after a few minutes.

"You did" pause "Are you afraid of needles, Renji?"

The expression on Kuchiki-taichou's face was, now, one of pure amusement and wicked joy.

The shinigami sighed in internal defeat and banged again his head on his desk – harder, this time.

"How do you know?"

"Let's say you communicated it to the whole ensemble of guests with abundance of tears and whining as soon as Unohana-taichou suggested an IV as a rapid solution to your drunkenness"

Renji's gaze darkened a bit "I didn't beg, did I?"

He sighed again, this time in a sort of tired desperation.

"Did, too. You fell upon your knees and tried to repeatedly kiss her feet"

"Oh Fuck…" Renji banged his head again and again and again " What else did I do?"

"Nothing much" Byakuya replied, but something in his tone suggested the poor boy there could have been_ tons _of shameful actions actually hiding behind that "Nothing much".

" 'Nothing much' as in?"

"As in being somewhat "sober" enough to refuse a passionate kiss from Madarame-san. Too bad, that would have been a nice _divertissement_ for the guests"

His voice was now purely acid and, when he started to use French as a means of expression, it was always, always, always – did he mention always? – a bad sign.

Anyway, being bound to tickle (at 10 o'clock in the morning _and _after a hangover) his sense of self-preservation, he decided to temporarily ignore the fact baldie had tried to kiss him again.

"I see… Oh, headache…"

Ok, that hadn't been the smartest thing to say, but, whatever, it was still something.

"_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu de la France, donnez-moi la patience_" Kuchiki-taichou sighed and shook his head, resuming his task of signing papers.

Needless to say, Abarai-fukutaichou didn't know a single word in French and, obviously, his Captain knew it perfectly and tended to stick to that resort every time he needed and/or wanted – more the second one, though – to get on Renji's nerves.

But, right now, he might be trying to live through the post-symptoms of a royal night of mad drinking, but he was in no mood to be fooled around, so he simply nodded and turned again towards his paperwork.

Fact was that, on the other hand, Kuchiki Byakuya seemed rather inclined to be persistent in his mocking intents.

'_Tu ne comprends pas, huh? C'est seulement du français, Renji. La langue des artistes et des poètes, mon garçon…_''

The red-head sighed.

Well, if he had to look at the whole thing with a sort of optimistic view, he could say this time he managed to at least get two words.

Ok, maybe just one, since "huh", probably didn't count as a complete word.

And given that the other one was his own name… But no!

He couldn't surrender now.

He wouldn't let that PMSing man win so easily.

There was no way he was going to ask him what the hell he just said.

No-Way.

So, he quickly nodded again and scribbled a couple or random things on a report, pretending a perfect – or, at least, he hoped so – aloofness.

"_C'est futile, je peux voir que tu n'ai __pas __compris , Renji.'' _Long sigh _'' C'est la vie…''_

The instinct of slamming his head harder and harder against that inviting solid surface suddenly became so impelling Renji soon found himself gripping the pen to the point it almost seemed to break.

But, luckily for his post-hangover, somewhere among that forest of messy red locks he had stored some stocks of common sense – to use in special circumstances.

"Whatever…"

He quickly mumbled, his repressed anger thumping against his "fake angelic self of façade" and literally trying to smash it to pieces and, if possible, even ashes.

Honestly, on a random other, normal day he wouldn't be much bothered by that and he would probably drown that primitive, homicidal instinct in a good dose of hentai-thoughts revolving around his pretty, little Rukia and himself in every possible and impossible position.

But_that_, even on a shallow analysis, was nowhere near a normal day: his beloved had kissed him while he was plainly bombed out of his head (but evidently not enough to erase the sweet, sweet memory of her tongue thrusting inside of his mouth), he was still trying to pull through a royal hangover and his taichou was as prissy and pricky as it was – probably fortunately – rare to witness.

So, before the message spreading across his still alcohol-bathed brain-cells could be read and pondered, his lips automatically opened to blurrily spit out the worst thing he could dare to say

"It must be cowardice to induce you to make use of something you know I can't understand…" he mumbled behind his teeth.

Too bad for him Kuchiki Byakuya's hearing was known to be the most efficient one in Soul Society.

"I beg you pardon?" the older man looked coldly at him, his eyes daggering around and metaphorically sectioning his body in tiny, tiny, tiny pieces – a fine work of art not even SenbonZakura herself in her mighty glory could afford.

Renji's life played in front of his eyes as in a comic, silent movie with actors moving too fast to be real and the main character as unlucky as a black cat on Tuesday, 13th November.

"Errr….I….Kuchiki-taichou…."

The attempt of finding a rational (or at least logical) solution to the ocean of reeking crap he had buried himself into, resulted lousier than what he had imagined.

'_Shit'_

"You what, Renji?" his voice was icy enough to freeze the sun on the spot and turn its surface into a skiing-resort.

The most appropriate reply would have surely been "I'm a huge but regretting idiot".

Anyway, was it the hangover still getting on him, was it the last semblances of his male pride trying not to sink in the ocean of alcohol he had swallowed, but in the end, he decided to keep his mouth shut and locked, hoping the lack of words would somewhat show his penitence.

Needless to say, he miserably failed.

Or better, "Failed", with capital "F".

The black-haired man stood up in the blink of an eye and neared his seat, an expression of cold fury painted on his face able to induce poor Renji to miss the usual, soothing aloofness.

"Oh, I see. Now who's the coward?"

His magnetic and fucking terrifying gaze was fixed in red-head's one.

The gap dividing the idea of simply begging for mercy and the thought of crawling to his taichou's feet and imploring forgiveness by prostrating himself in every possible way, was so thin that, as soon as Abarai-fukutaichou opened his mouth to try and form some words of apology, his knees almost automatically gave in – or was it the fear? – and he nearly fell down on all fours in front of his taichou, causing the older man to practically jump backwards and against the desk.

"Kuchiki-taichou, I'm so-"

But luck, on that morning, was literally grinning at him.

He didn't even get to finish his self-destructing sentence and the door slammed open, revealing a shocked, drenched and dejected Rikichi.

"Kuchiki-taichou!" the little boy bowed "Abarai-fukutaichou!" another bow out of politeness, drops of water scattering around with every movement.

"What's wrong, Rikichi?"

Renji mumbled, raising his tattooed brows. Byakuya, on the other hand, simply stared at him.

"I….I'm sorry" he started, stuttering and shaking – probably half in shame, half in cold "I really didn't….didn't mean…to… to interrupt you in such an … important moment in which… you…you… high-ranked Shinigami surely were discussing…about… about vital matters for the sake and wellbeing of…Soul So-"

"Cut it off, Rikichi, and get to the point!" the red-head shouted, freezing the poor guy on the spot.

"Oh….ah….yes, sure…I….we have again that problem, Sir"

"What problem?" this time was Byakuya's turn to talk.

"I…The pipes in the bathrooms, Kuchiki-taichou…they….exploded again and….actually we have six of our rookies to keep the holes closed…"

Renji frowned again

"To keep the holes closed?"

"Y-yes"

"How…?"

"Oh well…with their fingers…"

Abarai-fukutaichou rolled his eyes and massaged _again_ his sore forehead

"Oh gawd…"

"We have to take proper measures, then" Kuchiki Byakuya's voice came almost in unison with Renji's. "Renji, you go and fix the pipes. Right now"

"I what?!"

His surprised words filled the room in high, strangled pitches.

"You go and fix the pipes, Renji"

The Captain's tone was caustically calm and composed, his gaze fixed on his lieutenant and an evil glint of unjustified - at least in Renji's opinion – wickedness sparkling in his dark orbs.

"But….Kuchiki-taichou? Don't we have a plumber?" the red-head replied, knitting his brows.

"No, we don't"

"But, we called him three weeks ago for the same reason, I'm sure he wouldn't mind coming ag-"

"Too expensive"

"But, Taichou, we just spent a Hell lot of money in buying new plants to renew our garden! We can't go cheap on our bathr-"

"Stop it, Renji. I said you must fix the leaking pipes and you'll fix them. Right now"

"But how?!" the poor – still head-ached – boy kept on asking in the – vane – hope to avoid that degrading task.

"We have a bag of tools in the loft. I'll send someone to retrieve it"

"But I-"

"No buts, Renji. I said you must go and you_ must_ go. It is your exact duty to carry out your Taichou's orders"

A sigh of capitulation escaped the boy's lips as he simply nodded

"Hai, taichou…"

_o-O-o_

Half an hour later Abarai Renji was laying beneath a sink, hands tangled in a messed join of pipes, drops of water dripping down and continuously hitting the same hellish spot on his aching head, as to remind him that, evidently, fixing freaking leaking conduits was not enough a punishment for his non existent sins.

'_Next bead and I'll crash this frigging sink…'_

Drop, drop

'_Just…another…one and…'_

Drop, drop

"GAAAAAAH!"

Renji's body automatically moved, but as soon as he shifted from that ungodly position, his head hardly connected with a heavy, iron-made pipe, making the whole sink quiver and the man swear and swear, call down half of the known divinities, make up some useful other God for the special and rare occasion and, in the end, swear again.

"WHERE THE HELL IS THAT FUCK'N HOLE?!"

He screamed, massaging his sore cranium and trying to stuff his nose up the intricate patterns of conduits and see where the – curse, curse, another curse – hell the problem was.

"Holes, holes, holes! Why is 't so difficult to find a hole?!"

Once the last word rolled out of his lips, all that talking about "holes" brought his mind back to the night before, and made it sink into the memories of that nice, sweet, warm kiss with his beloved.

"Oh…" he sighed heavily "holes…"

But as soon as his brain-cells formed the slightest hint of hentai thoughts, a rush of cold, possibly stinking water shot towards his face, shaking him off that wonderful heaven and taking his poor body on cruel, mortal Earth.

"GAAAAAAAAAAH!"

_o-O-o_

As soon as Renji exited the room to go and accomplish his latest mission consisting in fixing pipes, Kuchiki Byakuya indulged in the all-but-noble-like gesture of sighing and tossing his head backwards, sprawling in his chair.

If he was to judge his actual behaviour from an external, neutral point of view, the only logical conclusion was that he was really, purely acting like a PMSing, unbecomingly childish bitch.

But, fortunately, given that he was no outer judge in all this matter he could always refuse to refer that low epithet to his noble self and pretend he was just acting normally and composedly – as expected from a Taichou-ranked shinigami.

A taichou-ranked shinigami who had just sent – or, better, kicked – his own fukutaichou to repair holes in their bathroom's pipes, simply for a mere, vile – but, he had to admit _very_satisfying – revenge.

And, moreover, a revenge for what?

Because he had kissed him while he was drunk and, for a strange joke of fate, he was convinced said kiss had been given by Rukia.

The man chuckled.

The situation, in fact, was almost comic if you failed to see it in all his illogical and insanely tragic light.

But, furthermore, the truly catastrophic side was that he really, really couldn't help but being like that.

Not the "PMSing, unbecomingly childish bitch" part, that is, but the "feeling-the-urge-to-seek-bitter-revenge" one for sure.

He felt mocked, that was.

He felt royally and deeply laughed at, his feelings torn and tossed in a trash bin on top of a reeking pile of banana-peels.

'_Abarai Renji __ pulled my leg'_

Byakuya mused, resting his head on his palm

'_And didn't even put said leg in a proper position for se-' _

The auto-censure alert started to beep in his mind, ignoring the evil little voices reminding him that it was already bad enough being in love with a boy, let alone ending up bottom.

That didn't mean he wouldn't enjoy his fukutaichou "taking good care" of him, though.

Or, at least, that was what he had gathered…less than ten minutes before, when Renji fell upon his knees in front of him.

In fact, he had to reckon, trying to describe what he felt in that moment would be like aiming to count the single droplets of water in a flood.

Or, better still, aiming to do that while they're breaking through a dyke and submerging everything on their path: shameful imagines of what else Renji could have done while being on all fours in front of him flashed in his mind, making him automatically draw backwards with the hope those lustful, wrong and unbecoming feelings were reversely proportional to the distance between him and his (hot) Fukutaichou.

Too bad he had never outstood in Mathematics.

But, fortunately, providence had assisted him in such a situation, sending the blissful gift disguised as Rikichi rushing to his office, soaking wet and announcing the bathroom's pipes had exploded again. Byakuya sighed in relief once more, sprawling in his own chair.

Yes, sometimes it was so convenient to be a Taichou.

Especially when you needed a strong distraction from your indecent thoughts involving your male lieutenant.

'_Mmmhh…Maybe even laying down on my futon. With my grey, silky sheets wrapped around his naked body…mmmhhh…yes…and his hair down…'_

He nodded to himself in agreement, closing his eyes

'_Then…I come in, I take off my uniform, my kenseikaans …I crawl on top of him while he's sleeping and…'_

And his eyes shot open.

Sure, he needed a diversion.

A rather powerful one.

A huge, overwhelming one.

With a pained sigh he lifted up and took the folders from Renji's desk – not before accurately caressing his Fukutaichou's pen and deeply inhaling his scent from his hair-band – placing them on his bureau.

What could actually be more distracting than doing calculations over calculations to verify their accounts?

Kuchiki-taichou sighed again as he took off of his drawers clean papers and a pencil.

'_I wish Renji was here…He's great in calculus…' _

* * *

To be continued... 

What's gonna happen next?

**Next Chapter Up, hopefully for Christmas..."Moonlight Shadows"! _  
_**


	9. Moonlight Shadows

Guess what? Once again I'm not dead - yet. Just had a bad time. A very, very, very bad time - never felt so lousy in my whole existence.

_**Info about the story:**_

_writing status: _Chapter 12. Uhm. Is the story dead...? Actually yes...T.T I'm really sorry, but I'm working on a collection of short stories that I want to be published. Oh, not online. I mean "real" publishing...

_reviews received:_ 80 - it really surprised me, I mean it. This story has been dead for such a long time that I didn't expect it to be still liked...thanks!

_hits: _more than11.600...thanks a lot...really...

Dedications: to my last reviewers, who still followed this story even after such a long hiatus...especially to _**321noeoen123**_, since her review gave me the ...uhm...courage to update at least this chapter.

_**VERY IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ BELOW**_

Alright, scary questions...

will you continue it? I don't know. Editing this chapter made me understand that my style changed a lot, so I'm a bit wary about continuing...what if the style will feel different? I need your help and your feedback to decide. Anyway, it should come out about 20 chapters long - maybe 21. So it means other 8 months to complete the writing, I'm really slow and really busy. Is it worth it? Your choice.

* * *

**  
CHAPTER EIGHT: ****MOONLIGHT SHADOWS**

_Four days after._

_The post-party – the evening._

The good thing in Soul Society was that the weather was nearly the same every day of the year. Seasons were alternating in there as well, that was true, but, honestly, apart from certain flowers and plants, there wasn't that much of a gap between winter and, for example, spring or even summer.

Old folks – basically Yamamoto-taichou and a few elders in the Kuchiki clan – used to narrate a tale about nature willingly submitting to the Shinigami's overwhelming reiatsu and allowing them the privilege to be raised up from mortals even in wearing always the same clothes, without being bothered by the trivial moods of the climate.

Most likely, as Rukia thought, it were the Shinigami to adapt their uniforms to the weather and to thank good nature for that underserved gift.

Oh, well, "almost thank", at least, given that she had yet to find out who the Hell had been dumb enough to design for them black outfits when the average temperature was always around 25 degrees.

'_That's just plainly stupid'_ she mused as she rolled over on her comfortable futon _'And it's too hot with this kimono'_

Rukia slightly tugged at her clothes.

Yup, it was very hot.

Especially if you were used to wear a simple, short skirt and a light shirt just until the previous day.

Not that she liked occidental clothes too much, truth to be told. But her orange-haired gentleman kept on vigorously pushing her into that (by hiding every traditional piece of cloth around the room, for example), so, in the end, she became more and more used to that way of dressing. Not as much as Ichigo made a custom out of taking advantage of every inch of her newly exposed skin, though.

'_Mmmmhhh…Ichigo…I wonder if he's doing fine. Today it's Saturday, he's supposed to help his father in the clinic…mmmmmhh…'_ the girl closed her eyes and rolled again, laying down on her stomach _'Too bad I'm not there…I already got more than used to his being all cuddly-cuddly after coming back from his little work…mmmhhh…'_

Rukia dumbly smiled to herself and crossed her arms under her chin for support.

'_I saw him just once with the white coat…but I think it kinda fits him…mmmm…actually quite a lot, to be honest…he should study medicine… He's definitely cut out to be a doctor. Not to mention how nice it would be to be his nurse' _she grinned_ 'in __**every**__ sense…'_

It wasn't like they lacked originality in "certain matters", however – definitely not, given that they had tried half a billion of ways and shades to "do it" since the very moment she had lost her virginity to Ichigo.

Yes, despite her 153 years, 6 months, 5 days and the tons of chances she would have had to consume that crucial moment while being in Soul Society – chances going from finding a naked and smashed Renji in her bed back when they lived together, to being left completely alone in the Division headquarters with that God of Sex named Kaien-dono in the middle of a far too inviting storm – she had managed (or, probably, simply happened) to preserve her virginity until she had been sent to Earth.

Or, more precisely, until a hot August afternoon, when she chose to kick off all her older brother's recommendations about being careful to safeguard for a hypothetical husband the "most important and valuable good a woman possesses" and , instead, decided to try and see how hard Ichigo's bed could squeak with the right amount of pressure – which, she had gathered then, was quite a lot.

The girl rolled over again, as if to look for the familiar sound of her lover's mattress under her back, slightly sighing when she heard nothing but the rustle of the smooth fabric of her kimono against the silky sheets.

She had been in Soul Society for more or less 24 hours and she was already tired of the environment and longing to kiss her orange-haired Shinigami.

Alright, maybe all the events of the previous evening didn't help, either.

Truth to be told, discovering your best friend is actually in love with you never helps, probably. Unless you're madly in love with him as well and were just waiting for the right turn of the events, that is.

In any case, it was definitely not helpful when said friend organized a party just to confess it all to you and you're stably dating the only person he would keenly skin alive on the spot.

'_Oh gawd…what a mess…'_ she sunk her head in the soft blankets _'What a big, big, big mess….'_

Especially because Abarai Renji had tried to kiss her against a wall – and she had run away like a hunted prey.

'_Very noble-like…' _

Oh well, if in the very end he didn't even get offended, why should she mind?  
And she was sure he wasn't upset. To be honest, he looked rather…happy? during the last hours of the party.

Unlike her brother who continuously seemed to be sitting on an electric chair.

Right, Kuchiki Byakuya-sama had never been the party-addicted kind of person, let alone when it came to grant his presence in such a trivial and meaningless occasion. But, Rukia had gathered, there seemed to be something else in Nii-sama, something other than his typical iciness and aloofness that usually kept him at least 10 km away from every form of amusement whatsoever. Something that, probably, had something to do with the existence of a certain Abarai Renji, privileged beneficiary of half of Byakuya's glares.

They worked together, it was true, and her brother wasn't exactly the less accurate of men, but still, there had to be something _serious_ to make such a noble man look at him as if his glares could make him flare on the spot and reduce him to smoking ashes.

'_The only rational hypothesis is that Renji must have done a gigantic mess to piss him off that much…'_

And the problem was that, when it came to loud-mouthed, chaotic, cyclonic Abarai Renji, the possibility of a disarray wasn't that baseless.

In the end, wasn't it Abarai Renji himself who had talked half of the Eleventh Division into taking a day off duty just to visit a brothel?

But the option of the brothel wasn't that founded, in that specific case.

If red-head committed such an "immoral crime" in the sacred Division of the moralistic, stick-in-he-mud, rules-keeper Kuchiki Byakuya , he would be executed on the spot by a scattering cloud of cherry petals and his corpse used to feed the strange beings Korotsuchi Mayuri was breeding in the depths of his lab.

What was then?

Something to do with paperwork?

A failed mission?

Top-secrets documents revealed?

'_Oh man…that's tricky…'_

And she didn't even have her orange-haired piglet to cheer her up.

'_Karakura town is so freaking far…and phoning would be__** so**__ expensive…'_

Rukia sighed dejectedly and covered her eyes with her arm, her lips emitting a low moan and…

And a voice in the back of her head thrilled

'_But your brother is rich enough he could buy half of the Sereitei if he wanted to…mmmhhh…'_

She flung herself at the small, old-fashioned phone placed on her nightstand and immediately dialled the international-switchboard number. As she waited to be connected with the requested locality, every second seemed to be an eternity.

'_Oh come on…come on, come on, come on! If it takes this long to Karakura town, just how much would it take to Hueco mundo?!' _

Ichigo's voice came suddenly, in a mumbled and slurry mess of vowels and consonants

"Who's there?"

The girl smiled happily to herself to celebrate the success of her small plan

"Hi, Ichigo…that's Rukia here…"

A second of silence on the other end of the phone

"Huh…? Rukia…? What's wrong?" an indistinct noise of rustling and sweeping followed the orange-head's statement.

"Wrong? Nothing. Just wanted to hear you…."

She fought a bit against the short wire of the telephone but, in the end, she successfully managed to place it on the mattress and lay down again on her back, her head comfortably huddled in a soft pillow.

"Hear me?" a tiny squeaking sound indicated her he sat down on the bed "Already tired of being back home? I thought you graduated shinigami despised our mortal soil…"

Rukia sighed deeply. Why, why, why did he always have to make her long for a bit of romanticism?

"I just wanted to hear my boyfriend. Is that wrong?"

"No, not really. Will you just give me the time to slip into a pair of clean boxers or are you already hot enough you can't even wait a few, few minutes?"

"ICHIGO!" the dark-haired shinigami wailed, her blush so evident you could practically touch it "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING?"

"Ooohhhh…what do you think I was doing, hentai-Rukia-chan?"

Her eyes widened "STOP THAT! YOU SAID YOU WERE….YOU ARE…JUST WEARING YOUR NATIVE OUTFIT!"

Another small pause "Is Byakuya around? You're not used to…round talk the concepts. Not at all."

And, even if they were kilometres and even _dimensions_ apart she could swear on her noble pride he was _grinning_.

"You should call him "Kuchiki-taichou" or at least "Kuchiki-san" you know…And , by the way, I'm not the one in an embarrassing position right now…"

"Oh….you're not? Too bad…" another indistinct sound of rustling "What are you wearing?"

"I'm all wrapped up in a freaking thick kimono…and it's hot here, you know…"

"Hot…? _How much_ hot…?"

The girl bit back a gasp as she heard his mischievous and somewhat sexy voice

"Quite a bit"

Her own tone came out shaky but definitely better than what she expected. And since their relationship was based on small victories and small revenges, it was still a great conquer, wasn't it?

"Ooooh…you'd envy me, then, if I told you I just came out of a refreshing, rinsing shower…"

Rukia's mind distractedly sent her nice, nice images of half-naked, wet and sexy Ichigo. She shook her head and dusted them off.

"Yup, I do…the concept of taking a bath alone and in peace it's something unachievable in a house full of far-too-careful servants…" her voice took high pitches as she mimicked the tone of said people " 'Do you need soap Kuchiki-san?' 'Is the water hot/cold/scented enough?' and so on, and on and on…"

"That really sucks….my chocolate…"

"Your…_chocolate_?"

That was new. Definitely new.

"Of course…You said you're….wrapped in your kimono, right? My duty then is to unwrap you until I reach the prize, isn't it… _my chocolate_?"

The black-haired shinigami squeaked again

"ICHIGO! JUST HOW CAN YOU ALWAYS..?"

"Think about …_ that_? Well, you should have learned by now that I am a healthy 16-years-old boy…"

"Almost 17, by now"

"That's not the point. Besides, you left for Soul Society without…fulfilling your promises. This must count as something, huh?"

"It was YOU who fell asleep, you freaking jerk!"

"Oh, well, those phone calls were taking you _ages_, you know?"

"_Ages?_ You should be there when I call Kotetsu-san or Matsumoto-san!"

"That's not the point, once again"

"And what's the point, then?"

"That I wanted you there and then"

This time Rukia blushed again

"Oh…."

_o-O-o_

Abarai Renji looked up at the water pouring on his face.

No, luckily he was done trying to fix that hideous leaking pipes – and he had managed to find the problem just three mere seconds before resorting to Zabimaru's BanKai – but, as soon as he got home, he had discovered that, evidently, though he was sick tired of water for at least three months, he still needed some sort of shower to remove the smell of stinking fish from his skin.

He gave a last rewash to his hair and then headed out, nothing but a small towel loosely wrapped around his waist. If Kuchiki-taichou had known this sort of things, he would have regretted not having installed small cameras in Renji's house when, soon after the "great betrayal", he had had the opportunity because of "security purposes".

Anyway, luckily for his heart's health, Renji was happily unaware of it.

He moved to his bedroom and sprawled on the mattress, a lousy hairbrush tangled in his messy locks as he called down half of the Saints of Heaven with every new knot on his way down.

Man, he was gonna cut them short sooner or later.

Sharp scissors and a ton of hair-gel, and he would be spared from this painful ritual every time he got a freaking shower.

'_Meh, but girls like it long, ya know that'_

he tossed his head forwards and curtains fell on his eyes as he brushed his hair in front of his face.

Yeah, girls like it long.

Actually girls always liked it long, in any case.

And Rukia was a girl.

And, for instance, he was Zabimaru's master (though many idiots in Soul Society had always thought the other way around).

And we know swords' size is based on the power of its owner.

And , in case you all didn't notice, Zabimaru could be a Huge, Long, Strong – all with capitals, obviously – Hard- or maybe that wasn't exactly his Zampaktou, now, was it?

Although, evidently, the size of the blade _did _have something to so with the size of the….errr…."thingie".

'_Mmm, whatever. In any freakin' case Rukia'll be more interested in that than in Zabi anyway…' _he nearly joygasmed in smugness _' She'd be SO satisfied and thankful…mmmmmhhh…'_

He dumbly smiled to himself, metaphorically patting his head the way you do with an obedient and good dog.

At least until those nice, mental pats turned into hard whacks and slaps when his mind distractedly sent him the thought of Zangetsu's measures.

And that wasn't even in BanKai-mode.

When this mental association led him to remember his beloved actually lived at that jerk's, he started to furiously brush and pull his long, bright-red locks, as if he was fighting against that walking orange once again.

And only ending up making his hair electric and puffing up around his head providing the angry-lion-mane effect he _so_ hated.

"GAAAAAAAAAAH!" he loudly growled and sent his poor, innocent hairbrush smashing against a wall.

The so-called "existential questions" came to his mind again.

'_Why him?! Why that freaking orange! With all the good-looking men in Soul Society!' _he slammed his head against the pillow and hardly bit on it.

The blurry, alcohol-dazed memories of the previous evening started to flow again in his mind.

The accident with her blue kimono, her sweet smile, her velvety tongue when it slipped inside of his mouth and kissed him so deeply and still tenderly…

Abarai Renji sighed and snuggled deeper in the mattress.

Why did she kiss him if she was in a relationship with that freaking IchiHollow?

Thinking about that, the possibilities were two: either she was drunk out of her mind or she didn't love that misplaced item of fruit that much.

But, considering that it was such a long time since Rukia last got smashed and that, by now, Kuchiki-taichou's horror for everything alcoholic had infected her as well, the only real chance left was the second one.

'_Appealing, indeed appealing'  
_

The matter was figuring out the best way to make her confess, then.

And, possibly, quite quickly, given that his beloved Rukia was supposed to go back to Earth in a few days.

'_I could announce again my love to her using Soul Society's radio, mmmmm'_

Yup, that idea looked rather nice.

If the radio station actually wasn't inside the Twelfth Division headquarters.

And, sorry for Rukia or whoever else in this spinning world, but he wouldn't step foot in that freaking place.

Not even if they gave him a conspicuous pay-raise _and_ the promise Kuchiki-taichou himself would serve him meals in bed for an entire week.

It wasn't like he had strange fantasies on his taichou, obviously, but can you imagine _how _satisfying if would be?

Priceless, absolutely priceless.

Shaking the funny – really funny – vision of his Captain dressed up in a black-and-white maid uniform, his mind went back to thinking about how the Hell he could make Rukia spill it all out and seal this goddamned long story with a happy ending – one that, of course, wouldn't include the misplaced orange.

'_Ok…radio was excluded, declaring and kissing? Been there, done that…what else, what else? Paint the front-door of her house with hearts!'_

Too bad "her house", those days around, tended to coincide with his cruel, cruel Taichou's…

In the end, every other idea but the radio looked rather lousy, or too outstanding (how was she supposed to react in finding her room and the all the way to her division filled with lilies and roses? Not to mention the sudden raise in the allergies-rate around Soul Society), or simply unrealizable.

Every other idea but the radio, that was.

But still, he firmly had no idea to reduce his safety distance from the Twelfth Division whatsoever.

'_Meh, that sucks, she likes music so much…music and songs, yeah…'_

Renji rolled on his back and stared at the ceiling.

Yeah, songs and music.

How the Hell was he supposed to provide her with "songs and music" if- wait, wait, wait.

The red-haired boy smirked evilly.

'_I'll sing for her myself, right?'_

The smirk broadened into a wide grin

'_A serenade. A nice, romantic serenade! That's what she needs!'_

He jumped off the bed and rushed to the door.

However, as soon as he reached the steps, a chilly breeze caressed his body, revealing a new, upcoming problem.

Maybe he'd better get dressed before actually heading out…

_o-O-o_

The pale glow of the moonbeams silently shone on the polished stones of the traditional garden and on the wooden porch, staining everything under its touch with whitish pools of light.

A lonely man was sitting on a bench, a purely white nightly kimono wrapped around his thin body and nicely contrasting with his long, raven hair.

Kuchiki-taichou was looking up at the sky, his vision only slightly inconvenienced by a branch of a blossomed cherry tree.

He faintly smiled to himself.

How beautiful.

From his perspective, those gracious flowers on the black, starry background of the nightly firmament looked like a painting.

The worse part of the day was now luckily over, together with his supreme anger, utter touchiness, complete bad mood and so on. Byakuya leaned over and took again in his hands the finely chiselled, ceramic cup containing his vanilla-scented tea.

He sipped a small bit of the content and sighed deeply in the fresh nightly air.

The moment of the day was perfect. A pale, glowing moon up in the black sky, a neat, fragrant kimono on his clean, bath-softened skin and such a delicious tea to savour.

And obviously, the fact he could freely think about his fukutaichou and imagine every sort of adventure with him, without fearing that someone could surprise him spacing out.

He had acted very annoyingly during the past 8 hours at work.

Every single action he made was only and solely focussed on finding the worse features of Renji's character, drag them out, amplify them and make them explode with abundance of shards.

If his revenge wasn't bloody and painful, what was the point in taking it?

Probably the fact that a light wedge of guilt had needled his conscience when Renji had exited the bathrooms completely drenched in unclean water, hair untied and dripping, and his whole body smelling so much like a fishmonger that flies were starting to flutter around him.

And, the more he tried to tell himself that it couldn't possibly be his fault – and that the whole incident was to blame on the pipes, on the bad work the plumber had made and possibly even on the bad habits his subordinates must have when going to "relieve their natural needs" (bad enough to damage the drain system), the more Renji looked to him like a poor beggar ended up on the street because of his selfishness and needing money, and clean clothes, and a bath – and he was so willing to welcome the poor needful boy in his own bathtub, right?

Ooooh. So right.

'_I wonder if he likes lavender-scented water as well…but maybe he's more the cinnamon type of guy. A strong perfume for a strong man…'_

Kuchiki Byakuya's whole bathing process was something everyone else would have described as the most tedious and meticulous thing they've ever seen.

The most traditional cleaning ritual was in his private rooms, going from a delicate rubbing with a silken cloth to a gentle massage with oils and unguents – not to forget the special attention he dedicated to his hair, brushing it at least one hundred times and applying flax seeds ointments on the whole length.

Common people would think of it as the aristocratic whim of a spoiled nobleman, but, as he preferred to put the matter, it wasn't casual if his skin was as soft as a baby's and his locks always glowing and soft even after the wildest of the battles.

And then, try and wear Kenseikaans if your hair isn't perfectly smooth and flowing.

However, what could possibly earn him the label of "spoiled man" for real, was probably his custom to have his personal servant, Kyoko, massage his back and legs for at least one hour before slipping into the hot, lavender-scented water of the pool. That girl's skills in always hitting the right spots and pressing away the tension from his body were amazing. Her hands must have had some hidden bliss to make those massages so enjoyable.

Though, probably, they weren't as good as Renji's limbs on his skin would be.

Kuchiki-taichou hissed out a breath and took another sip of the hot liquid. Renji's hands on his body. That was daydreaming – even if it was night.

'_And what about making back-massaging a new task for my fukutaichou? In the end, Ukitake regularly receives such services from his third seats. Why not me?'_

Because he wasn't as sick as Ukitake Juushirou was.

Or, to put it better still, he wasn't sick _in the way_ Ukitake Juushirou was.

What an unfortunate thing in that specific situation.

To say it in the same way Renji himself would have, he was truly a "sucker for massages".

Byakuya sighed and sipped the last mouthfuls of tea, placing the white cup back on the wooden tray.

How long could he still go on like that?

How long could he still stutter and hide his feelings for Renji?

In the last few days not only his situation hadn't improved at all, but, if possible, it had got even worse.

'_Kuchiki Byakuya you should really drop your illusions. There's really no hope left after he mistook you for your adopted sister while you were kissing him…'_

Yes, he had kissed him for real.

No matter how many times he tried to pinch his own skin to shake off those memories, they still were firmly planted into his mind, indicating that, for once, it wasn't just one of his usual fantasies.

And, even if he made sure to constantly plague himself with the thought the name Renji whispered after that wonderful kiss wasn't his, that experience surely didn't go unnoticed in the depths of his already strained psyche – the sudden increase of his moments of spacing out was the unmistakable proof of it.

Honestly, he didn't even really put some real effort in stopping those episodes, the few seconds when his tongue was inside Renji's mouth playing again and again in his head as a song set on repeat.

No, Kuchiki Byakuya-Taichou had reached his limit and couldn't take it anymore.

He needed either to stop or to look for someone's help. And, even if at a shallow analysis stopping seemed to be the wisest solution, considering how obsessed he now was, that option was out of questions.

But, even asking for help wasn't as simple as it sounded.

Not for_ him_, at least.

Who was he supposed to rely onto?

It wasn't like he could grab the first being he bumped into and declare his love for his fukutaichou, was it?

Besides, it was perfectly known that, when it came to matters specifically concerning love-bounds, it was safer to go for women.

But was there a woman he could trust enough to reveal his secret?

His mind immediately thought of Hisana, but just to double-slap his ego three seconds later, both for his lack of respect towards her figure and the fact she actually died decades before.

Kuchiki-taichou sighed and turned again his face to the stars, inhaling deeply.

Wasn't there anyone he could count on as much as he could with his deceased wife?

'_None of my servants is trustworthy enough for such a task. And neither my officers are'_ he let out a pained breath _'but still, there must be someone. With all the people I kn-'_

And then, suddenly, the solution hit him.

The right girl, the probable bliss for all his problems appeared in his head.

A faint smile flashed on his face for a second as he lifted up from his bench and started walking back to the manor.

Without letting his mind room for second thoughts, he headed for Rukia's rooms.

* * *

_**To be continued...**_

What's going to happen next? Will Byakuya make it? What's on Renji's mind, this time?

Try and guess by leaving a review.

Next chapter up, I don't know when "Serenade, sweet serenade"


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